Which tones are hardest, why, and where to start.
Spanish speakers struggle most with Tone 3: it does not dip sufficiently low and is often simplified into a level-low or falling tone. Tone 2 is next — it starts too high and ends too low, so the rise is too shallow and it drifts toward Tone 3. The underlying cause is that Spanish uses a much narrower pitch range than Mandarin, so learners compress the whole tonal space.
Source: Rallo Fabra, Liu, Chen & Wayland (2021), Production of Mandarin Tones by L1-Spanish Early Learners in a Classroom Setting, in Second Language Speech Learning, Cambridge University Press, 273–289. DOI: 10.1017/9781108886901.011 | Hao, Gong & Zhang (2023), Interspeech 2023（B 级佐证：Luo (2025), Octaedro, ISBN 9788410792333 —— 未经同行评审，未采信其具体数字）
Group averages tell you where to look, not what you actually do. Two speakers of the same first language can differ a lot. The only way to know is to record yourself and compare.
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