This is my first experience with a tonal language and I am still learning how it-- and they, in general-- work. Before coming I figured I would ignore the tones and just "try" to pronounce words correctly; it's worked fairly well thanks to the context I've used them in but I have had many incredibly frustrating times where I pronounce a word multiple times (and with varying accents) until the listener finally guesses what I'm saying (or pretends he does).
Mispronouncing a word in Chinese is nothing like mispronouncing a word in English; the closest analogy I can come up with are our homophones, maybe the words "beach," "bitch" and "beech." In this case, only a native or advanced speaker could discern the difference without context. But more accurate would be if there were four to six words that sounded similar so depended exclusively on exact pronunciation for meaning.
How difficult is this? The Communists have been trying unsuccessfully to create a universal language for China since 1948. What we think of Chinese is actually three main languages all of which are mutually unintelligible despite being written exactly the same: Putonghua, what we know as Mandarin and is the most used and understood; Wu, which is the dialect of the Shanghai region; and Cantonese, spoken in the area around Hong Kong. And within these groups there are hundreds of regional and sub-regional dialects which are understood by non-native speakers to varying degrees.
I'll leave you with this: by law, the only language spoken on television is Putonghua, the "national" language and standard dialect of Beijing. But because so many Chinese cannot understand this dialect all programs must be subtitled!
SL
