Introduction of Chinese Pinyin Tones
Tones are an important part of Chinese,
which are the variation of pitch within a syllable and
are used to distinguish words with same Pinyin. There
are basiclly four tones and one neutral tone in Mandarin
Chinese. The following chart illustates the four basic
tones.
Basic Four Tone Marks
| Tones |
Tone Marks |
Descriptons |
Examples |
| 1st tone |
 |
阴平 high level |
dā 耷(drop down) |
| 2nd tone |
 |
阳平 high rising |
dá 答(answer) |
| 3rd tone |
 |
上声 low dipping |
dǎ 打(hit) |
| 4th tone |
 |
去声 high falling |
dà 大(big) |
The neutral tone, occurs on stressless syllables
and has a pitch entirely determined by the tones of adjacent
syllables. However, a neutral will never act as the starting
tone. Neutral tones are usually unmarked. For example,
the red parts of the following table are neutral tones.
| māma 妈妈 |
yéye 爷爷 |
nǎinai
奶奶 |
bàba 爸爸 |
| gēge 哥哥 |
wáwa 娃娃 |
jiějie 姐姐 |
mèimei 妹妹 |
| zhuōzi 桌子 |
fángzi 房子 |
běnzi 本子 |
jìngzi 镜子 |
| jīnzi 金子 |
yínzi 银子 |
zǎoshang 早上 |
dìshang 地上 |
| dīngzi 钉子 |
miánhua 棉花 |
yǐngzi 影子 |
yànzi 燕子 |
Tone Mark Placement
The tone mark is placed over the vowel if
there is only one vowel letter.
If there are two vowels, the tone mark is
placed on the first, unless the this first vowel is i
or u.
If there are three vowels in a syllable,
the tone mark is placed on the middle one.
When the tone mark is place on i, the small
dot is removed.
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Learn Chinese Pinyin for free: Sound
of basic
initials
and
finals. Listen
and practise.
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