The four tones

Welcome to Mandarin! Chinese is written in characters (汉字 hànzì), and to show how a character is said we use pinyin: the Chinese sounds written in the Latin alphabet. Pinyin has one extra feature that English spelling doesn't have: a small mark over a vowel that shows the tone.

What is a tone?

A tone is the pitch pattern of a syllable: whether your voice stays high, goes up, dips low or falls. In English, pitch shows feeling (a surprised What? rises). In Mandarin, pitch is part of the word itself. Change the tone and you have a different word, just as changing a letter changes cat into cut.

• 妈妈骂马。(Māma mà mǎ.)Mum scolds the horse.

The four tones

In the middle of a sentence, the third tone is usually just low: your voice drops and doesn't climb back up. You only hear the full dip-and-rise when the syllable is said alone or at the end of a sentence.

• 我是老师。(Wǒ shì lǎoshī.)I'm a teacher.
• 他不忙。(Tā bù máng.)He isn't busy.
• 我爱妈妈。(Wǒ ài māma.)I love Mum.

Here are two more sets where only the tone changes the word:

The neutral tone

Some syllables have no tone mark. They are said short and light, without stress, a bit like the -er in English sister. These include little grammar words such as 吗 (ma) and 呢 (ne), and the second half of many common words:

• 妈妈好吗？(Māma hǎo ma?)Is Mum well?
• 谢谢妈妈！(Xièxie māma!)Thank you, Mum!
• 你喝茶吗？(Nǐ hē chá ma?)Do you drink tea?

In 谢谢 (xièxie, thank you), the first 谢 has a full fourth tone and the second is neutral. In 妈妈 (māma) and 学生 (xuésheng, student), the second syllable is neutral too.

Where the tone mark goes

A syllable gets only one mark, on a vowel. To find which one:

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

On an i, the mark replaces the dot: nǐ, qī.

Typing tone marks is hard on most keyboards. In this app you can type the tone as a number after the syllable instead: ni3 hao3 counts as nǐ hǎo, and ma with no number is the neutral tone.

Why bother?

Chinese has far fewer different syllables than English, so tones do a lot of the work. Words learned with the wrong tone are hard to understand, even in context. Learn each new word with its tone from the start: it's much easier than fixing it later. Some tones change when syllables meet; that comes in Tone changes: 你好, 不 and 一. The letters themselves are in Pinyin: letters that surprise you.

Common mistakes

• Ignoring the marks: mǎi (买, to buy) and mài (卖, to sell) are opposite words. The tone is not decoration.
• Using English question pitch: in English you raise your voice at the end of a question. In Mandarin the last syllable keeps its own tone: Nǐ hǎo ma? ends on a light neutral ma, not on a rising má.
• Saying every syllable with a full, slow tone: a neutral syllable is short and light, and a third tone in mid-sentence is just low.
• xièxiè: the second 谢 is neutral. Write and say xièxie.
• haǒ: the mark goes on the a when there is one. Write hǎo.