本研究旨在探索學習中文為第二語之國際學生在第二語當地居留之時間長 短與其在中文聲調上發音之精確度之間的相關性。一共有40 位在台灣北部 某一所大學學習中文的外籍生參與此研究。所有這些研究對象首先被要求 填寫一份語言學習背景之問卷，然後再接受一項中文聲調發音之測試。測 試的結果與問卷所蒐集到的資料經由皮爾森積差相關係數之分析發現，居 留第二語當地時間上的長短與這些外籍生在中文聲調上的表現並無顯著關 係。此外，本研究還發現，中文中的第三聲對於外國的學習者來講是最難 習得的。

This study investigated the relationship between CSL learners’ length of residence (LOR) in the target country (i.e., Taiwan) and their accuracy in producing Chinese tones. In addition, it attempted to determine the relative productive difficulty of the tones for the learners. A total of 40 international students who learned Chinese as a second language at a university in northern Taiwan were recruited to participate in the research. All of the participants were first asked to fill in a language background questionnaire, after which they received a pronunciation test that required them to read into a tape recorder 20 Chinese characters with an equal distribution over four tones. The recordings of the participants were evaluated by three native speakers of Mandarin Chinese who majored in Chinese at university. After relevant data were collected, Pearson Product-Moment Correlations and a One-Way ANOVA were utilized to analyze them. The statistical results showed no significant correlations of LOR to the participants’ production of the Chinese tones but did find a significant difference among the mean scores for the tones. Consequently, the study concluded that with respect to Chinese tones, LOR does not play a critical role in second language acquisition of production of prosody. Moreover, it suggested that among the four Chinese tones, the 3rd tone poses the most difficulty for foreign learners to acquire.