Which tones are hardest, why, and where to start.
French speakers struggle most with Tone 3 (accuracy around 50%). Their errors are shaped by French intonation: the French utterance-final rise leads them to produce final syllables with a rising contour regardless of the target tone, and French phrase-final lengthening is carried over into Mandarin. Their tone identification is also significantly affected by onset and rime type, not just by the tone itself.
Source: Zhou & Demolin (2020), Perception des tons du mandarin par les apprenants français, HAL: hal-02798600 | Huang et al. (UMONS), ORBi: 20.500.12907/31904 | 《法語語調與法籍華語學習者中介語聲調表現之關聯性》, 國立臺灣師範大學, 2023
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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