-I failed to mention that it's also good training to get some experience in tonal languages by going for a tonal language like Mandarin. -
I've heard you can communicate in Mandarin even if you don't use tones, just like you can communicate in French/Italian/Portuguese neglecting the open ~ closed vowel distinction (come on, man vs men should have different pronunciation, but some people pronounce MAN the same way some other speakers of English pronounce MEN, and vice versa) ;)
I've heard you can communicate in Mandarin even if you don't use tones, just like you can communicate in French/Italian/Portuguese neglecting the open ~ closed vowel distinction (come on, man vs men should have different pronunciation, but some people pronounce MAN the same way some other speakers of English pronounce MEN, and vice versa) ;)