How many tones does Mandarin Chinese have?

Four tones plus a neutral tone. The four are high and level, rising, low and dipping, and falling. The neutral tone is short and light and takes its pitch from the syllable before it.

What happens when two third tones come together?

The first one is said as a rising second tone. So ni hao, written with two third tones, is said ni hao with a rising first syllable. The spelling does not change.

Do tones matter if the sentence makes the meaning obvious?

Yes. Context rescues some mistakes but not all, and consistently wrong tones make speech hard to follow even when each word is guessable. Tones are part of the word, not part of the intonation.

Reading · tones

The four tones.

In Mandarin the pitch of a syllable is part of the word. mā is mother andmà is to scold, and they differ in nothing but the shape of the pitch. This is the single thing that makes Chinese hard for English speakers, so it is the first thing on this site.

What each one does

Tone 1: High and level

Held flat and high, like holding a note. English does this when you say ah at the doctor.

妈māmother

Tone 2: Rising

Rises from the middle to the top, the way English rises on a surprised what?

麻máhemp, numb

Tone 3: Low and dipping

Drops low and stays there. In normal speech it usually does not rise back up unless the word is alone or at the end.

马mǎhorse

Tone 4: Falling

Falls sharply from the top, the way English falls on a firm no.

骂màto scold

Neutral tone

Short, light and quick, with no shape of its own. It takes its pitch from whatever came before.

吗maquestion particle

Playback uses whatever Mandarin voice your device has. A synthetic voice gets the tones right but not the music of real speech, so treat it as a check, not a model.

Hear the difference

Pick a pair. Each button plays the two syllables one after the other, which is the only way the contrast becomes obvious.

Nothing playing.

The three tone changes

Tones shift when certain syllables meet. The spelling stays the same in all three cases, which is why this catches people out: the page says one thing and the mouth does another.

Rule 1

Third plus third

When two third tones meet, the first is said as a rising tone.

你好nǐ hǎohelloSaid ní hǎo.

This is why the mascot, 点点, is said diándiǎn.

Rule 2

不 before a fourth tone

bù rises to bú when the next syllable falls.

不是bú shìno, it isn't不 rises here. In 不好 it stays bù.

Rule 3

一 changes twice

yī when counting, yì before tones 1, 2 and 3, and yí before a fourth tone.

一个yí gèone of something个 falls, so 一 rises.

Why the spelling does not follow

Pinyin writes the tone a word has on its own, not the tone it takes in a particular sentence. That is a deliberate choice: it keeps a word looking the same everywhere, the way English keeps the spelling of the even though it is said differently before a vowel. Once you know the three rules you apply them automatically, and most learners stop noticing them within a month.

Three things that help

Learn the tone with the word

Never file a word away as ma and add the tone later. The tone is a letter, not an accent, and a word learned without it has to be learned twice.

Use your hand

Draw the shape in the air as you say it. It feels silly and it works, because it gives your ear something physical to match the pitch against.

Practise in pairs

Single syllables are easy. Real difficulty lives in two-syllable words, where one tone has to end and another has to start cleanly.

Start day 1 Now the spelling system