If the Chinese language is a tonal language, does that mean you cannot whisper?

You have a completely legitimate point, but consider thhis: In English the only difference between the phonemes /b/ and /p/ is that one is voiced (/b/), and one is unvoiced (/p/), the same is true for /d/ and /t/, /g/ and /k/ /z/ and /s/, and /v/ and /f/.

This means if you try to "whisper" (speak without passing air through your vocal cords), you cannot correctly pronounce /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, or /v/, (all of these voiced consonants will sound exactly like their unvoiced counterparts)---and yet communication continues!

Generally, the person hearing you can "figure it out". The same is true for whispered Mandarin. People either merely "speak softly" rather than completely remove voicing from their speech, or they can simply figure out the speaker's meaning from context.

The same is true for singing in Manarin. The tune of the song naturally overrides the tones of the words, but context usually allows fans to figure out what the person is singing about. And again, the same is true of English. English is not a strictly tonal language, but it has stress and intonation rules, *just* like Mandarin. For example: the only difference between the English phrases

I must you dent.

and

I'm a student.

(when spoken) is stress and intonation.

Also, as you continue to study the tones, you will learn that they have more features than the simple rising and falling of voice pitch. The four tones have other qualities which differentiate them, which do not depend on voice:

(1) length: in order of duration from shortest to longest: 4th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd

(2) the rising second tone will cause the throat to contract slightly, whether there is voice or not

(3) the fourth tone is quite short, and ends with a glottal stop (passage of air is cut off in the throat)

(4) there is a "catch" in one's voice with the third tone, audible with or without voicing

In my first few years studying Mandarin, I frequented a site called "zhongwen.com", it was basically a chat room, and all chat was in toneless pinyin. Communication was never hampered by lack of characters or tones. Although admittedly, the participants used simple, conversational language, and a limited vocabulary (both factors which lead beginners to erroneously conclude Mandarin doesn't "need" tones). The overall point being however, that colloquial communication in Mandarin can still continue (although with difficulty) even without tones.

Also, Mandarin is *somewhat* able to put "special" stress on particular words, this is done by exaggerating the existing tones, first tones are higher and louder, second tones climb higher and are longer, third tones dip down deeper into the voice range, and are drawn out, and fourth tones are louder and said with more force. Still, it can be easy to miss these cues, because the tones *do* restrict how much you can "bend around" a word for emphasis. Luckily, Mandarin (and most Asian languages) has a large arsenal of "intonation particles" which are used for the specific purpose of changing the overall tone of an utterance, for example:

ta lai le (neutral, "he has come/he's here")

ta lai la (emphatic/informal)

ta lai le ya (emphatic/impatient/excited)

ta lai l'ou (anticipatory/joking/informal)

ta lai le ne (reminding/warning)

Incidentally, these sentence-final tonal particles are not used in formal writing, only in speaking, or transcribed speech (as in the dialogue in a novel, or informal writing written in a narrative style).

So there you have it, good luck in your studies.

[EDIT]

One of the most fundamental and enduring misconceptions about Mandarin is that "the same word in a different tone has a different meaning". Again, consider: In English, we have two words "convict" (con-VICT, v.) and "convict" (CON-vict). Technically this is the same exact word, just with different intonation, but in *my* mind, they are barely related. The same is true for "contract" (con-TRACT, v.) and "contract" (CON-tract, n.). Again, same word, same spelling, differentiated by stress, but not at all related in my mind.

Unfortunately, those who learn Mandarin as a second language do mistakenly imagine that ma2 (hemp) ma3 (horse) and ma1 (mother) are "the same word", they are not, they are as different as "hemp", "horse", and "mother", but only when the tones have "gotten into one's bones" does one understand that tones are not an outer skin applied to the word after it is formed, they are as fundamental as consonants and vowels. I'm confident that as you continue to study, you will soon develop this feeling as well.

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Your question title is misleading in two ways, as you may or may not be aware. First, Chinese is actually several quite different languages which happen to be related (as, say, Romanian and Portuguese are related) but are written exactly the same. These languages are called 'Chinese' largely for political rather than linguistic reasons. Second, Chinese languages are not alone in being tonal. So are many others, such (to take a random example) Thai. In fact, classifying only these languages as tonal is a little misleading. Even English is tonal - but English and Chinese use tones quite differently. For example, in English You are going to wear that! and You are going to wear that? are both perfectly permissible and understandable. Read them to yourself, and you will hear that the difference between them is purely one of tone. That wouldn't work in (say) Cantonese. Changing the tone would mean changing the meaning of a word. To change the meaning of the sentence, you would have to add an interrogative particle, so that the second sentence would read (say) You are going to wear that ah. The addition of 'ah' turns a statement into a question. To come more directly to the answer to your question, I promise you that you ARE hearing tones in whatever Chinese language you are listening to. A long chunk of speech delivered in one tone would be very boring indeed for the ear - in fact, it would be quite literally 'monotonous', if you would care to translate that from Latin. It's just that you are not interpreting the changes in tone in the right way yet. With experience and practice, you will.

Why can't Chinese be whispered if it's tonal? Whispering is just talking in a lower volume, nothing else changes, it's the same as whispering a song. If Chinese is tonal, how can it be robotic, when robotic means monotone? People of all languages can express different emotions, states of mind, so do Chinese people and you can surely tell when they are happy, sad, angry, satisfied..., you would be able to emphasize your words as you learn to speak the language.

Whisper In Chinese

If you decide on to discover Chinese then you should know that Chinese language is without a doubt one of the hardest languages for westerners to understand, and up until now understanding to communicate Chinese to a level of proficiency outside of the classroom atmosphere has been practically impossible but not if you choose a program

Sure you can whisper. Whispers can have inflection...maybe not as clearly as you would in a conversational voice, but it's there.

Yes, stress may be placed anywhere in Chinese (or Japanese...even within the same word, in Japanese, which confuses the hell out of many English speakers).

No, you definitely need more exposure to Chinese languages if you think they are flat and robotic. Break out of your Germanic mindset.

Interesting question. I think one can whisper in chinese: try to sing a song whispering.. it works!

As for your second question: I don't speak a single word Chinese, and I am getting the same impression you get: for me it is very hard to "read" emotions in a chinese movie from the tone of voice. This is even harder as the body language and facial expressions are not there or different from the western way to express feelings and moods non-verbally. It makes me very uneasy..