Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language: the pitch pattern of a syllable changes its meaning. The syllable ma means different things depending on its tone:

TonePinyinCharacterMeaning
1stmā妈mother
2ndmá麻hemp; numb
3rdmǎ马horse
4thmà骂to scold
neutralma吗question particle

The four tones

Tone pitch is often described on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest of your normal speaking range).

First tone — high and level (ā)

Start high and stay high, as if holding a note. Mark: a flat line, ā. Example: mā 妈.

Second tone — rising (á)

Start in the middle and rise, like the “what?” in a surprised question. Mark: rising line, á. Example: rén 人 (person).

Third tone — low (ǎ)

Go low. In careful isolated speech it dips and rises again; in normal speech, before another syllable, it is usually just a low, slightly creaky pitch. Mark: ǎ. Example: wǒ 我 (I, me).

Fourth tone — falling (à)

Start high and drop sharply, like a firm “No!”. Mark: falling line, à. Example: qù 去 (to go).

Neutral tone — light and short (a)

Some syllables lose their tone and are said lightly and briefly. They have no mark in pinyin. The neutral tone is common in particles and in the second syllable of many words, such as xièxie 谢谢 and péngyou 朋友.

Tone colours on hanzi.ac

All pinyin on this site is coloured by tone so you can see the pattern at a glance:

  • First tone
  • Second tone
  • Third tone
  • Fourth tone
  • Neutral tone

Where the tone mark goes

The mark goes on the vowel, following a fixed order:

  1. If there is an a or e, it takes the mark: hǎo, méi.
  2. In ou, the o takes the mark: dōu, zǒu.
  3. Otherwise, the last vowel takes the mark: duì, liù, guó.

Practising tones

  • Learn each word with its tone from the start; fixing a wrong tone later is harder than learning it right.
  • Listen to the audio on each word page and repeat it out loud.
  • Practise tone pairs (two-syllable words), not only single syllables, since tones change shape in connected speech.

Tones also change in some combinations — see tone changes.