Comments by "Philip B" (@philipb2134) on "NativLang" channel.

  1. How many tones are there? 4? 5? 6? or ?? It's normal to struggle with "Chinese pronunciation". There is no such thing as modern spoken "Chinese." Consensus among neutral linguists holds that (say) spoken Mandarin and spoken Cantonese are more divergent than, well, Spanish and Portuguese. The latter two are recognized as separate languages in their own right; we are coercively guided to believe that Mandarin and Cantonese - although more divergent - instead are merely "dialects" of a (politically mythical) common language.
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