> The biggest mistake of most Chinese learners is taking tones too seriously.
I'd like to add that this depends on where you are. The Taiwanese almost completely merge s/sh, z/zh, c/ch and also n/ng in some cases. You cannot distinguish between 4 and 10 without tones here. I have often heard that the Taiwanese rely more on tones, and Beijingers rely more on the actual sounds (as in Western languages).
Also, most of the time when people do not understand me, it is precisely because of the tones. I still often encounter situations where a friend will repeat my last sentence character for character, making me think "that's what I said!!", but apparently I didn't.
Reading is super easy, handwriting is a useless but fun hobby. Pronunciation is super tough.
(I am German, though - but if anything, I feel that we have it easier to pronounce Mandarin sounds.)
Eventually, you just start getting the tones right because you speak and listen so much. I can get by native sometimes (limited only by my bad vocabulary) and I've never study tones consciously for words I learn.
When I'm really tired, I sometimes change my 'sh' to 's' and sound more southern. Nobody really cares. However, I do screw up sometimes when saying words like "jichang" and "jingcheng," and will wind up on the wrong expressway in the taxi. This has not much to do with tones though.
I'd like to add that this depends on where you are. The Taiwanese almost completely merge s/sh, z/zh, c/ch and also n/ng in some cases. You cannot distinguish between 4 and 10 without tones here. I have often heard that the Taiwanese rely more on tones, and Beijingers rely more on the actual sounds (as in Western languages).
Also, most of the time when people do not understand me, it is precisely because of the tones. I still often encounter situations where a friend will repeat my last sentence character for character, making me think "that's what I said!!", but apparently I didn't.
Reading is super easy, handwriting is a useless but fun hobby. Pronunciation is super tough.
(I am German, though - but if anything, I feel that we have it easier to pronounce Mandarin sounds.)