If you are learning Chinese, you shall realize the importance of Pinyin and Pinyin tones. Without good knowledge of Pinyin, it’s hard to go anywhere in terms of learning Chinese. Check out this great free tools in helping you learning Chinese Pinyin .
This website also contains a great Pinyin table, you can find all Pinyin there and here them pronounced in each Chinese Pinyin tones.
In Mandarin Chinese it happens that sometimes we change the tones of certain Pinyin syllable to improve the clarity or ease pronunciation difficulties, here are some general rules.
1. The 3rd tone is a changeable tone. When two 3rd tones come together, the first 3rd tone should be changed into a 2nd tone, e.g., nĭ hăo (你好 hello) should be pronounced níhăo.
2. When a 3rd tone is followed by a 1st, 2nd, 4th or neutral tone, the 3rd tone should be pronounced as a low 3rd tone. In other words it is a low sustained tone, e.g., as in jĭnzhāng (紧张 nervous) and jiĕfàng (解放 liberate). Both jĭn and jiĕ stay in the lower part of your voice and you don’t move the sound up.
3. Only under the following situations should the 3rd tone be pronounced as a proper 3rd tone:
* when a 3rd tone is on its own. For example, the mono-syllabic expression hăo (好 OK, all right).
* when a 3rd tone is at the end of a sentence or a phrase, e.g. fànghăo (放好 to put [something] properly.)
4. When a sentence has three third tones next to each other, it can be changed into the following two patterns:
* second, second and proper third
* lower third, second and proper third.
For example: wŏ hĕn hăo (我很好 I am fine) can be pronounced either wŏ hénhăo or wó hénhăo.
The neutral tone in Mandarin Chinese is a short and light tone, as described above. The best way to remember how to pronounce the neutral tone is to remember its length and its pitch as follows:
* The syllable before the neutral tone should be pronounced longer, as if it is a crochet in music notation and the neutral tone as a quaver.
* A neutral tone should be in the middle range of your voice. If a neutral tone is preceded by a low tone such as a third (curved) tone or a low ending tone such as a fourth (falling) tone, the neutral tone should end up at a higher pitch than the preceding tones; if a neutral tone is preceded by a first (sustained) tone or second (rising) tone, the neutral tone should end at a lower pitch than the preceding tones.
Here are some examples of tone changes
1 xiè xie 2 hăo ma 3 mā ma 4 péng you
5 jiĕ jie 6 xìng zhi 7 hái zi 8 yá men
There are four tones in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, plus one neutral tone(or called “no tone”).
First tone in Chinese Pinyin
The first tone is marked as a straight line like this¯. It has a long and sustained sound (as if singing a note).
Second tone in Chinese Pinyin
The second tone is marked upwards like this . It is a rising tone (start from the lower part of your voice, then go up).
Third tone in Chinese Pinyin
The third tone is marked down and up like this ˇ. It is a low and curved tone. Try to go as low as you can and then bounce up.
Fourth in Chinese Pinyin
The fourth tone is marked downwards like this. It is a falling tone (start from the grating highest part of your voice, then go down, as if exclaiming).
Neutral in Chinese Pinyin
The neutral tone has no mark. It is a short and light tone.
Where should I mark the tones?
Tones should be marked on a vowel. If a word has more than one vowel, the tone should be marked on the main vowel of the word. Vowels are listed in the following order: a, o, e, i, u and ü. As the vowel ‘a’ appears first in this list, the tone in the word liao should be marked on the vowel ‘a’.
There are three parts in Chinese Pinyin: the initial, the final, and the tone. In Chinese pinyin, the tone, initial, and final are represented as follows:
Tone
The tone is represented by a tone mark placed on top of the syllable. There are exactly four tone marks: ˉ, ˊ, ˇ, and ˋ. The two dots on ü (like a German umlaut) do not have to do with the tone, so if you see ǖ, ǘ, ǚ, or ǜ, the symbol above the dots represents the tone.
Initial
The initial is:
* at the front of the syllable
* a consonant (not including y, or w)
* usually one letter, except for:zh, ch, sh
Final
The final is made up of the letter(s) after a syllable’s initial, not including the tone mark. A final:
* begins with a vowel
* can be made of 1-4 characters
* end with a vowel, n, ng, or r
Exceptions to initial-final combinations in syllables
Some syllables have no initial or no final. In Pinyin, this is shown as follows:
* For syllables with no final:
o an unpronounced i is added to the end of the syllable
o Occurs only with the following initials:zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s
* For syllables with no initial:
o if the final begins with an i, it is replaced with a y
o if the final begins with an u, it is replaced with a w
o if the final begins with an ü, it is replaced with yu
o Exceptions to the above:
+ i alone is replaced by yi
+ iu is replaced by you
+ in is replaced by yin
+ ing is replaced by ying
+ u alone is replaced by wu
+ ui is replaced by wei
+ un is replaced by wen
+ ueng is replaced by weng
One other exception:
* when combined with initials j, q, any ü in a final is changed to u