State the pitch scale
Open Tones in an empty practice editor and disable Smart IPA suggestions for the literal scaffolding. The supplied task uses the five-level IPA reference scale: ˥ extra-high, ˦ high, ˧ mid, ˨ low and ˩ extra-low. These labels describe relative pitch, not fixed values in hertz.
Write down which convention your future document will use. A dictionary's tone 1 may name a category rather than the lowest pitch level, and a romanization accent can mean something different from a similar-looking IPA mark. This exercise avoids those ambiguities by stipulating the intended pitch patterns instead of borrowing numbers from an unnamed language.
Attach the two combining marks
Type [a, select the high-level acute mark and close the bracket. Add a space, type [a again, select the low-level grave mark and close that bracket. The chart displays standalone marks with a dotted circle, but inserting them after a should produce the two annotated vowels without those circles.
The marks belong to the vowel in these examples. They are not instructions to stress that syllable, and they should not be interpreted using another writing system's accent rules. High and low are still relative descriptions. The first line demonstrates this format; it does not claim that its two examples correspond column by column to the different patterns on the second line.
Build a level and two contours
Press Enter and type [ma. Select ˧, then close the bracket. After a space, type [ma again and select ˩ followed by ˥ before closing. Build the final example the same way but select ˥ before ˩. The placement after ma makes each tone-letter sequence apply to that schematic syllable.
The contrasting contours demonstrate why order matters. Low-to-high and high-to-low contain the same endpoint levels but describe opposite movements. A suitable font may join adjacent tone letters visually; the underlying order still carries the contrast. These letters give a simplified contour, not a continuous trace of every pitch fluctuation in a recording.
Download the legend with its key
Review the two lines and choose Download text. Open the file and compare its marks and contour order with the supplied result. The verified download preserves the combining accents and both tone-letter endpoints. If a destination program shapes the contours differently, check the character sequence before deciding that the pitch pattern has changed.
Keep a prose key beside the legend when sharing it. Lexical tone and phrase-level intonation can interact, so a visible high point in a recording is not automatically a lexical high category. This keyboard inserts notation; it does not identify tones, extract pitch or judge pronunciation. Adapt the legend only after deciding what unit and convention your real analysis needs.
Choose the right notation
Marks above a vowel or letters after a syllable?
Follow the convention of the material you are preparing. Combining marks can make simple contrasts compact, while successive tone letters make contour endpoints explicit. Explain any change of format rather than silently treating every spelling accent as an IPA equivalent.
Which arrows belong in the key?
The official IPA chart uses ↗ and ↘ for global rise and fall. Ordinary ↑, → and ↓ in the site's palette are not automatic substitutes for official upstep or downstep signs. Define any additional arrow shorthand instead of inventing an IPA value for it.
Add a new rising contour
Write an invented ma syllable rising from the mid reference level to extra-high. Enclose it in phonetic brackets and explain the endpoint order.
Compare with the model answer
The task supplies the endpoints. No word meaning, absolute frequency or language-specific tone number follows from this schematic notation.
Common questions
Is ˥ always the same frequency for every speaker?
No. It is the extra-high reference level under the five-level convention. Real frequencies vary with speakers and context, so the notation requires relative interpretation.
Does a tone number tell me which button to choose?
Only after you read the source's key. A number may label a language's tone category rather than a phonetic pitch level, and different numbering conventions are not interchangeable.
Should rising and falling examples have the same letter order?
No. In this task, ˩˥ rises and ˥˩ falls. The order of the endpoints distinguishes the patterns even when the same two characters appear.
Sources & further reading
- International Phonetic Association — interactive chart
Level tones, contour examples and global versus step notation.
- Essentials of Linguistics, 2nd edition — Tone and intonation
Relative pitch, tone categories and conflicts between notation systems.
- Unicode — Spacing Modifier Letters
The five Chao tone-letter characters used for levels and contours.
Put it into practice
Open Tones to try the example, then continue with the topic’s practice exercises.
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