# [Chinese Pronunciation] 4 Steps to Mastering the 4 Mandarin Chinese Tones > Chinese Tones intimidate many learners of Chinese... but, the thing is, we actually have all of Chinese's tones in English, too. Understand English, and you'll understand Mandarin pronunciation, too. **URL:** https://migaku.com/blog/chinese/chinese-language-tones **Last Updated:** 2025-08-21 **Tags:** fundamentals, pronunciation --- Tones scare everybody who wants to [learn Chinese](/learn-chinese). ... but they shouldn't. If you're a native English speaker, you can already make _all_ of the tones in Mandarin Chinese just fine. Chinese speakers just use them differently than you do. --- ## Step 1: Learn the difference between tones and intonation The only thing standing between most learners and confidence with Mandarin's tones is one simple concept. Let's clarify that concept. ### How English intonation works Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, [forgive my voice acting skills](https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2015/01/27/kaisers-dude-system-of-tones) and check this out: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. I said one word eight different times, changed the way I said it each time, it meant something different each time, and you understood what I meant each time. Incredible, isn't it? Suffice it to say that English is a _very_ tonal language. > If you speak English, you are perfectly capable of understanding and making all of Mandarin's tones. ### How Mandarin Chinese tones work Before I tell you what you're supposedly hearing, let's just hear the tones and take a moment to think about what's _actually_ going on. Compare the two sets of audio below, and maybe the audio above. Listen for things like: - Melody _(how does the pitch move?)_ - Quality _(neutral voice, gravelly voice, breathy voice, etc.)_ - Emotion _(robot or snarky?)_ - Anything else that sticks out to you
English Mandarin
Tone # Description Audio Tone # Description Audio
1 Annoyed dude 1 High level tone
2 Concerned dude 2 Low rising tone
3 "You dawg!" dude" 3 Low falling tone
4 Angry dude 4 High falling tone
5 Neutral dude 5 Neutral/toneless tone
### The key difference between English and Chinese Pronunciation You've now heard both, so here's the key point to observe. Per Wikipedia: - [Tone]() → "\[The\] use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words." - [Intonation]() → "\[The\] variation in pitch used to indicate the speaker's attitudes and emotions \[and\] to highlight or focus an expression..." You're used to making tones, but they're tied to emotions for you, where they aren't for Mandarin speakers. Or, from another direction: The syllable "ver" is stressed in _version_ but not in _over_. It just so happens that we pronounce "ver" more strongly in some words and more relaxed in other words. Chinese tones are similarly mechanical: each tone is just a possible "shape" of a Chinese syllable. If you take your English emotions—see the above table—and keep the melody but subtract the emotion, you end up remarkably close to Chinese's tones. > Stress gives shape to English words; tone gives shape to Chinese words. --- ## Step 2: Learn the four tones of the Chinese language Here are Mandarin's four tones (plus a bonus one!) visualized: Mandarin tone chart And now let's talk through the chart a bit:
Tone Name Example Translation Tone mark Description of pitch contour
1 / 1st today ō (macron) A high, flat, unwavering tone. Don't let your pitch trail off!
Remain at the same "height" for the duration of the tone.
2 / 2nd due to ó (acute) Start at your normal talking pitch and immediately rise.
The melody is very similar to that of "what?" in English.
3 / 3rd I / me ǒ (caron) Start with a low pitch and drop your pitch until your voice turns gravelly.
Rises back up in careful speech. More like an inverted first tone in "normal" speech.
4 / 4th but / however ò (grave) Start at the top of your vocal register and drop sharply.
Melody is similar to that of "No!" in English.
5 / 5th possessive particle o (none) Just your normal talking voice with no intentional inflection.
### First, practice Chinese tones in isolation Each tone has a distinct quality. If you can't hear a tone's quality, it will be difficult to produce them yourself. So: 1. Look up [common Chinese words on Wikipedia](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Mandarin_Frequency_lists/1-1000) 2. Identify a few Chinese syllables with each pitch (or check out the list below the image) 3. Listen to recordings from native speakers [on Forvo](https://forvo.com/word/%E4%BB%96/#zh) Or, with a Migaku subscription, you can use our Chinese Tone Trainer. We'll play the audio of a one-syllable word, ask you to identify its tone, and build your tonal awareness with immediate feedback. A screenshot of the Migaku Chinese Pitch Trainer At Migaku, we assign a unique color to each tone: - 1st tone is red - 2nd tone is yellow - 3rd tone is green - 4th tone is blue - 5th tone is grey This gives your memory one extra thing to latch onto, which is helpful early on. Eventually this will all be second nature, but until then—it's helpful to just remember that a word is red. ### 1st tone words A few words that utilize Chinese's first tone: - = today - = should / ought to - = business ### 2nd tone words A few words that utilize Chinese's second tone: - = due to - = to become - = actually / in fact ### 3rd tone words A few words that utilize Chinese's third tone: - = I/me - = you (singular) - = good ### 4th tone words A few words that utilize Chinese's fourth tone: - = but - = society - = like this / in this way ### 5th tone words A few words that utilize Chinese's fifth or neutral tone: - = okay / alright - = friend - = mom / mother The main place you'll encounter this is with , but keep your ears peeled! It also occurs as the second syllable of a number of words. ### Next, learn pinyin and the pitch combinations Tones don't usually exist in isolation: they flow into each other in speech. This in mind, your next step toward mastering the tones is to learn them in _pairs_: to be familiar with not just "Tone 1" and "Tone 2" but also "Tone 1 → Tone 2". Migaku makes this easy. 1. You'll learn pinyin 2. You learn how the tones work 3. You drill common words for each of the possible tone pair combinations A screenshot from our Chinese Pronunciation course, showing how we help users learn Chinese tones and pinyin Migaku is completely free for 10 days—no credit card required. At 13 flashcards per day, you can completely finish our pronunciation course within that time. --- ## Step 3: Watch YouTube to observe how natives pronounce Mandarin Chinese tones Your ears are incredibly powerful things. Immersing yourself in the reality of how natives _actually_ talk will often do you more good than reading English explanations of how people _supposedly_ talk. This will lead you to notice things like how two third tones in a row are actually pronounced as a second tone and then a third tone. _(This is called [tonal sandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Tone_sandhi) or "tone changes")._ So: 1. Boot up Migaku's [Just Starting Mandarin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CMzfhsCYrA&list=PL2FsjAIKmm56U9gGCymHZ8pDzPaRMHXOI) playlist 2. Select a video that looks interesting 3. Watch it with Migaku A screenshot showing how Migaku enhances YouTUbe videos to make them more accessible to Chinese learners We make it easier to understand Chinese videos by generating subtitles if the video doesn't have them, letting you display subtitles in two languages at once, and letting you click on words to see what they mean. --- ## Step 4: Use flashcards to remember and practice Chinese tones If you stumble into a useful looking word or sentence, just click the orange button in the top-right corner of the dictionary. We'll automatically turn it into a flashcard that looks like this: A screenshot of a flashcard Migaku automatically made from YouTube to help users learn Chinese words [We'll periodically nudge you to review words you make flashcards out of](<](/blog/language-fun/spaced-repetition-language-learning)>) until you eventually remember what they mean—_and_ how to pronounce them. --- ## The #1 thing you need to remember if you want to learn Chinese I moved to Taiwan in 2018, so I get it: Mandarin is intimidating. Tones are scary, pronunciation is scary, Chinese characters are scary. It's a lot. The thing is, as complex as modern Chinese learning applications are, learning Mandarin is actually very simple: > If you consume media you enjoy in Chinese, and you understand some of the messages and sentences within that media, you will make progress. _Period._ You _do_ need to get your feet under you somehow, but to really get anywhere with Chinese, you'll eventually need to dive into the deep end and begin spending more time _in_ Chinese and less time in English learning _about_ Chinese. That transition is scary, too—but Migaku has been purpose-built to make overcoming it as painless as possible. You might even have fun.