Tones in Chinese
July 25, 2024
When learning a Chinese language, tones are often one of the things that comes up as a particular pain point for learners. But, despair not. Tones are simply yet another feature of a language, like consonants and vowels. If you think of them as a super special or super difficult thing to overcome, then it's easy waste time psyching yourself out. Treat it as you would the spelling of a word: simply yet another thing you have to learn.
Without further ado, let's take a look at what tones are, the tone change rule exceptions, and how you should approach them in your Mandarin studies.
Overview
Tone Name |
Pattern |
Pinyin Diacritic |
Pitch Contour |
Example |
Ex. Translation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 / 1st |
high flat |
ō (macron) |
55 |
今天 |
today |
2 / 2nd |
rising |
ó (acute) |
35 |
由於 |
due to |
3 / 3rd |
low |
ǒ (caron) |
214 or 21˦ |
我 |
I / me |
4 / 4th |
falling |
ò (grave) |
51 |
但是 |
but / however |
5 / 5th / neutral |
none |
o (none) |
3 |
的 |
possessive particle |
Mandarin Chinese Tones
In Mandarin Chinese, the tone of a word is as important as the consonants and vowels: it's a necessary component to even be understood. Tones are set pitch patterns that each syllable in the language has. Without the tone, you really can't say you know the word, similar to how in Spanish you need to know the gender of nouns. If you'd like a refresher, check out the detailed breakdown below.
First Tone:
Form: indicated with a flat line as in ā
Sound: steady high flat
The first tone is a high flat tone at the top of your vocal range. It's similar to holding a high musical note when singing. That said, you shouldn't be straining to produce the pitch. You should still be able to comfortably hit this note at all times.
Example Words:
- 今天 = today
- 应该 = should / ought to
- 公司 = business
Second Tone:
Form: indicated with a line sloping up to the right as in á
Sound: rising mid to high
The second tone involved a pitch that starts in the middle of your natural vocal range and peaks up at the top of it. This pattern exists in English when raising your voice to form a question, "Really?" Notice how high the pitch ends at the end of saying that sound. It helps if you try to exaggerate when learning new sounds.
Example Words for practice:
- 由於 = due to
- 成為 = to become
- 其實 = actually / in fact
Third Tone:
Form: indicated with an upside down caret as in ǎ
Sound: low to lower to high or low flat
The third tone in its pure or isolated form is characterized by a low pitch that dips even further, and then rises. However, this form is rarely used because it's not that common to say words in isolation. In reality, people are going to talk relatively quickly and articulating this sound would slow you down. Consequently, this tone often morphs into a more or less low flat tone.
Example Words:
- 我 = I/me
- 你 = you (singular)
- 好 = good
Note: consecutive third tones actually involve a tone that changes, so they are not provided here as example words. See the next section for more information.
Fourth Tone:
Form: indicated with a line sloping down to the right as in à
Sound: falling high to low
The fourth tone is the final "true tone" in Mandarin, in that it is actually characterized by a distinct pitch pattern. This tone begins at the upper end of your comfortable vocal range and descends to the lowers part. This is kind of similar to saying commands in English with a sharp, falling intonation as in "Stop!"
Example Words:
- 但是 = but
- 社會 = society
- 這樣 = like this / in this way
Fifth Tone:
Form: no marking
Sound: a brief middle pitch
The fifth tone in Mandarin is really an absence of a tone pattern at all. As a result, you can think of the fifth tone as normal, uninflected English speech. The words sit in the middle of your vocal range, and they are relatively light or brief.
Note: fifth tone words never occur in isolation. That is, a word is never fifth tone by default, with the exception of particles. Furthermore, they never appear at the start of a word. This is because fifth tones are more or less a consequence of fast speech and reducing the burden of speech on the speaker.
Example Words:
- 好的 = okay / alright
- 朋友 = friend
- 妈妈 = mom / mother
Tone Changes / Tone Sandhi
What is it?
Tone sandhi is simply the formal term for tones changing based on the sounds around them. It turns out, there aren't that many situations that lead to tone change in Mandarin. Lucky us! However, these changes still come up frequently, and as such are very worth understanding.
Most texts and resources that include pronunciation information in the form of pinyin, do so ignoring tone change. In other words, you have to mentally change the tones yourself. It's not a bad thing per se, since eventually you will have to become accustomed to changing tones correctly in your own speech, but it does add yet another burden on the learner of an already difficult language.
Why do they change?
Tones change—as with many other irregularities in language—to ease the task of speaking. It's simply easier and faster to alter certain combinations of tones. It takes time and effort to constantly modulate your pitch, so common cases that are avoided by speakers have resulted in tone change.
Let's now take a look at the tone change rules in Mandarin.
Consecutive Third Tones ↘️ ↗️ ↘️ ↗️
Rule:
- When there multiple 3rd tones next to each other, the last character retains its 3rd tone, while the preceding characters change to 2nd tone.
Examples:
- 可以 (3 + 3) becomes 可以 (2 + 3)
- 我很好 (3 + 3 + 3) becomes 我很好 (2 + 2 + 3)
Note: This rule technically applies to all preceding characters, however, in practice nobody speaks without natural pauses or breaks. Once there is a break in one's speech, the rule "restarts." For instance, (3 + 3 -break- 3 + 3) will result in tones (2 + 3 -break- 2 + 3).
The Character 不 bù
Rule:
- When 不 comes before a 4th tone, then 不 becomes 2nd tone.
Examples:
- 不是 (4 + 4) becomes 不是 (2 + 4)
- 不对 (4 + 4) becomes 不对 (2 + 4)
Note: there are no exceptions to this rule. It only applies to the character 不 and applies when there is a fourth tone right after.
The Character 一 yī
Unfortunately we have no hard-and-fast rules here.
The character 一 refers to the number one and has some special tone changes. There are three possible tones that it can take: one, two, and four. Let's examine the circumstances that lead to each.
Tone 1 一
It's "official" or "default" or "nominal" tone is first tone. This default reading (pronunciation) is only used in specific circumstances. These include being used as an ordinal number, cardinal number, and referring to things that form a series, for example:
- 一 = one (cardinal number)
- 第一 = first (ordinal number)
- 一加一 = 1 + 1 (cardinal number)
- 一月 = January (part of a series)
- 一零一房间 = room 101 (part of a series)
If not used in one of the specific ways above, then it changes tone depending on the tone of the character that follows.
Tone 2 一
It becomes Tone 2 if followed by Tone 4, for example:
- 一次 = once / one time
Tone 4 一
It becomes Tone 4 if followed by any other tone (1, 2, or 3), for example:
- Tone 1 + 1 in 一天 becomes 一天 (4 + 1)
- Tone 1 + 2 in 一层 becomes 一层 (4 + 2)
- Tone 1 + 3 in 一种 becomes 一种 (4 + 3)
How to Approach Learning Tones
Tones are fundamental parts of the Mandarin Chinese language, so you must make it a priority to know when learning a word. Here are some basic strategies to approach learning tones.
Learn what they are 📖 ✍️
If you completed this article you've already taken the first step! It's crucial that you make yourself aware of what's possible, so that you can look out for and notice the tones in the content that you listen to. Which leads us into the second point.
Quiz yourself when listening 👂 📝
It's been shown time and time again that active recall is a very useful strategy to learn new information. When you hear the spoken language, try to actively make guesses at what tone you thought you heard. Then, you can check a dictionary to see if you were right or wrong. There is software and pop-up dictionaries out there that will show you the tone information with a single click or hover on subtitles.
Color Association 🔴 🟠 🟢 🔵
Another strategy to help yourself learn tones is to build a strong color association. You'll notice that throughout this article, the characters are assigned a color based on what tone they correspond to. That's because Migaku software to learn Chinese has this functionality. You can also see this in option in other dictionaries, such as Pleco. When trying to recall the tone of a word, you can also think about the color you saw it in, whether in a dictionary or on a flashcard as an extra reminder.
Practice Speaking 🗣️
Being able to produce the tones correctly shows that you understand them well and are on the path to solidifying that aspect of the language. When starting out, it's better to practice in isolation and compare to audio. As you listen to the language more, you should be able to develop an ear for the tones, and catch your own mistakes. This is a continual process of improving your listening, and grading your own speaking so that you can keep improving and avoid learning poor tone articulation.
Feedback from native speakers can be useful, but their specific feedback is unlikely to be too helpful unless they have some linguistic background. We only want to use their feedback in terms of whether they thought it was correct or incorrect. Natives will almost always have a better perception of correct or natural output as compared to yourself, so they can be invaluable in this regard.
And that'll do it for the tones in Mandarin Chinese. With this you should be well prepared to further your Mandarin studies and improve your tonal skills. If you're looking for a comprehensive approach for learning Chinese from the basics all the way to fluency, we recommend you check out our Mandarin courses and software. We offer a free trial and a plethora of features tailored to Mandarin learners.