How does singing work in other languages such as Chinese where tone can change the meaning of a word?

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Do the tones end up being a big deciding factor in the melody of the song? For example, how much different would Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sound in Chinese vs English because of the different use of tone?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It kind of depends. A lot of times you can still sing, and the meaning is implied from context of the other lyrics. Other times the song melody is written with the tonality of the language in mind so it “works”.

This has already been asked here a ton of times though:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search/?q=tonal+language+singing](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search/?q=tonal+language+singing)

Have a look for some excellent and more in-depth answers from native speakers of a tonal language, which I am not.

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