Pinyin 04- 4 Tones.chi >tone1a.lis>

Custom Search the Web

Pinyin 04- 4 Tones.chi >tone1a.lis>

Enter your name:

Everyday Mandarin and English

Han Yu Pin Yin
汉语拼音
    han4 yu3 pin1 yin1 (hàn yǔ pīn yīn)

Tones
音调
yin1 diao4 (yīndiào)

The tone of Chinese word is very important. This aspect of speaking Chinese is the most difficult for non Chinese speaking people to learn.

In other languages, the tone of a word varies with the mood of the sentence. In Chinese, the tone stays the same whether the sentence is a question, exclamation or a simple statement. Mood is indicated by stress on certain words. To use a wrong tone in a Chinese word would change its meaning completely.

There are four basic tones in Chinese phonetics, expressed as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

The 1st tone is called the Ying 阴 tone or Ping Diao 平调. It is a high level flat pitch tone.

The 2nd tone named as Yang 阳 tone or Sheng Diao 升调 which is a rising pitch.

The 3rd tone which is Shang tone 上 or Shang Yin 上音 is a low dipping pitch.

The 4th tone is called Qu 去 or Qu Yin 去音 tone which is a falling tone.

Example :
Notice the different pitch for Chinese words associated with Ni, and fu.

1st tone 2nd tone 3rd tone 4th tone

妮泥你逆

ni1[nī]

ni2[ní]

ni3[nǐ]

ni4 [nì]

Hear the four tones

夫扶
府
父

fu1[fū]

fu2[fú]

fu3[fǔ]

fu4[fù]

Hear the four tones





                    Click to hear the four tones

Rules of the Thumb
If there is only one vowel, tone symbol should be placed above the vowel – ba4 na3 o2
The dot for vowel “i” should be neglected when we place a tone symbol. Ni3 becomes nǐ

When the finals have two or more vowel, the tone symbol should be placed on the vowel with more order of priority

a o e i u ü
a o e i u ü

Lesser Priority

Example:

百 bai + 3 > bǎi

变 bian + 4 > biàn

(a priority over i)