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Getting started with Chinese 1
Getting started with Chinese 1

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2 Tones

Chinese is a tonal language. In Mandarin Chinese, there are four tones (five if you include the neutral tone). Tones are marked in pinyin as follows:

Described image
Figure 1 Four tones

First listen to the four tones pronounced with the inital ‘m’ and final ‘a’. Open the transcript to listen to it alongside the pinyin.

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Listen to them again, this time together with the neutral tone:

Download this audio clip.Audio player: l197-pronunciation-10b.mp3
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