The Mandarin neutral tone is a toneless utterance. The ‘word’ ma has five meanings dependent on tone. Mother, hemp, horse, curse, question-mark are the five meanings.
Ni3 hao3 means hello but Ni3 hao3 ma means How are you?
And I believe all words in Japanese ‘could’ be written with the 46 syllables if katakana.
Ni3 hao3 means hello but Ni3 hao3 ma means How are you?
And I believe all words in Japanese ‘could’ be written with the 46 syllables if katakana.