Hi! Unlike English, tones in Chinese can make a word mean totally different. Take 'ma' for example, which is a very typical example when talking about the tones. ma with the first tone means: mother ma, second: linen as in 'a linen jacket' ma, third: horse ma, fourth: to abuse, attack in words This is what it is when looking at those words separately. However, in reality, if a foreigner speaks wrong tones, we native speaker can also understand what he or she is trying to say. For example, my grandmother from Dalian city (a coastal city in the northeastern part of China), she speaks with a strong accent. Other than calling ants as 'ma3yi3', she says 'ma3yi4', but we Mandarin speakers also know her very well. Still, I strongly suggest you learning tones well. :) Another thing I think you should know is, although Chinese Mandarin has four tones, it does not necessarily mean that every 'word' has four tones, four example, gao, we have gao1: tall, high, gao3: to make, do, gao4: to inform, but 'gao2' does not exsit at all. Hope it helps.

My advice is learn tones. if you say the wrong tone.... well not all chinese people will understand your meaning. as you progress in you chinese level your tones become very important.

hi,if you want learn more, you can choices professional teachers from China. good luck. http://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial/index.html?ecl=ptEEEEEEit113005

different tone means different words.Sometimes a single word has various tone while used in various cases.

In the most widely-spoken tonal language, Chinese, tones are distinguished by their shape (contour), most syllables carry their own tone, and many words are differentiated solely by tone. Furthermore, tone tends to play almost no grammatical role (the Jin language of Shanxi being a notable exception).