Have you noticed how the Chinese speak in a sort of sing-song voice?

Question

Say, when I hear an announcement at the olympics, you hear the French first, then the Chinese, then English.

listening to people speak chinese/mandarin, it's in such a sing song tone, have you noticed this? No other languages are in that tone.

Why is this so?

Answer 1

Because it's a tonal language.

Answer 2

Chinese has five tones.

This is why Japanese call Chinese sounds, "onyomi" or "musical reading." :)  

Answer 3

Chinese has tones (5).  Each word has a tone.  If you mess up on a tone of the word, you can give the word a different meaning.  So... it's important! ^_^

And other languages are like that such as Thai, Vietnamese, Cantonese,....

Answer 4

Yes! It's really cute I absolutely love it! <3

They speak like that because it's a tonal language.

Answer 5

wow, what a discovery, did you also pay attention to the way French people pronounce "r"?

:P

any language has its peculiarities

including Chinese

:)