Skip to main content

Pronunciation guide

Diagram showing the different tones in Mandarin Chinese with an explanation by its side which reads:

The 1st tone is a high level tone, the 2nd rises from medium to high, the 3rd falls from low medium to low and then rises to high, and the 4th falls from high to low (see Figure 3). The tone marks are put over the single finals a, e, i, o, u and ü. There are some syllables that do not have a tone mark (e.g. some particle words or last syllable in a word), and they are called ‘neutral tone’. The neutral tone is low and flat with no stress.

 2 Tones