Why cant I hear tones in Chinese singing?

Question

Chinese is a tonal language each word having a specific tone. I can pretty much always hear and tell what tone a word is but when I play chinese music I cant hear any tones to the words. When people sing in Chinese do tones not come into it? Or is it just me not hearing them for some reason? If tones are not used is it just common sense that tells you what they are saying?

Answer 1

Just like any other language. When you sing you can't hear the tone because it, if any, will get artificially drowned by the song's tone.

Answer 2

In fact, without correct tonning, Chinese CAN be understood( if with a correct pronunciation), and music requires no tonning.

Answer 3

The words would have to be sung according to the melody, thus the tones cannot be heard. We make sense of it by listening to the combination of the words used and common sense.

Answer 4

The tones are  drowned by the song's tones.

So sometimes it's really hard to tell some words without script even for native speakers.

(But most words still can be recognized since songs often use simple words, if you are familiar with the language.)

Answer 5

Because you are not native chinese, there are tones, but you just can't recognise them fully. The tones are there, but amongst the tunes and rhythm of the song, it is difficult to distinguish.

Answer 6

When you sing you can't hear the tone because the characters have to be sung according to the melody.

Answer 7

i think its like when we sing in english and we hold a note or shorten it to make it fit in with the lyrics. singing changes things...

and i think they know what their saying because of the other words in the song..so common sense ahah