How to pronouce chinese pinyin?

5 Comments

1. Chris A2 says:

   September 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   Mandarin has five tones. The numbers indicate which of the tones is used to pronounce that syllable.

   For the following, imagine a scale, where a is the lowest pitch, and e is the highest pitch (these are not the musical notes denoted by a,b,c,d,e; just relative pitches). The tones are pronounced approximately as follows:

   Tone 1: a high pitch that starts at e and stays there

   Tone 2: a rising pitch that starts at c and goes up to e

   Tone 3: a falling then rising pitch, starting at b, dipping down to a, then rising up to d

   Tone 4: a quickly falling pitch, starting at e and going down to a

   Tone 5 is a neutral tone or light tone. These syllables tend to be small particles that occur at the end of sentences or phrases, or the second of a pair of repeated syllable. They tend to be de-emphasized in pronunciation.

   At least for me, Tone 2 tends to be the hardest to pronounce.

   You can hear some samples here:

   http://chinesepod.com/resources/pronunciation/section/17

   Here’s a good site with Chinese characters:

   http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php
2. 田中 says:

   September 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   Actually, there are 5 tones. The 3 means it starts off low, dips to the bottom and rises back up. 2 means starts medium tone then rises up.

   Google Chinese tones, and you might understand it better.
3. Hello says:

   September 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   The numbers actually stand for tones. It’s kind of hard to explain without you being able to let me show you. If you go to this video then you can hear a demonstration of the different tones and how to do them. She starts from the 1st tone and works to the 4th tone.

   *ah…sorry, for some reason it’s not letting me put up a link, but you can google it.
4. zen says:

   September 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   2 the tone is going straight up (/)
   3 the tone is go down a bit and up, like the check mark.
5. echineselearning says:

   September 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   there are 5 tones，not times!
   tu3 tun2
   3 is tone 3: a falling then rising pitch, starting at b, dipping down to a, then rising up to d
   2 is tone 2: straight up (/)
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