If Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, meaning that the inflection of one’s voice changes the meaning of the word, then how is it properly understood when being sung?

Question

I’ve been a fan of the Chinese singer Faye Wong for a couple years now and have always wondered this.

In: Other

Answer 1

Native singers and listeners understand the “rules” of their language within which you can sing words dramatically different than you would say them.

Think about English – sung words are often radically different than their spoken form. Say when drawing out a word in a song it’s not uncommon to go back and forth over a pair of vowel sounds – think the Beetles “I want to hold your hand” – write that out the way they sing it and it’d be something like “I want to hold your haaaaahahnd”. It’s nowhere near “hand” really, but as a competent English language user your brain can easily and immediately take enough context and process it so the words are readily intelligible to you.