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... Pronunciation Lesson: ... "Mandarin" Chinese has "four" pitched "tones" and a "toneless" tone ... called the "neutral tone". The reason for having these tones is probably ... that the Chinese language uses more homophonic words (words with the ... same sound but different meanings) than English, as well as most other ... languages. Through tones the relatively small number of syllables are ... diversified and expanded: the same spelling in Pinyin (which usually ... equates to the same Chinese Character) can mean four different words! ... 4 different words - 1 syllable. It's brilliant when you think about it. Nonethe- ... less, it puts a premium on "TONING" everything correctly, because when ... you mis-tone something you may call someone a 'pig' --- ... when you only meant to call him a 'ham!' ... 
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