The Mandarin tones

The four tones and the neutral tone

• First tone — high and level

  A high, flat pitch held steady, like singing one sustained note. Marked with a macron: mā (ㄇㄚ).

• Second tone — rising

  Rises from middle to high, like the questioning lift in English “huh?”. Marked with an acute accent: má (ㄇㄚˊ).

• Third tone — dipping

  Falls low and then rises again, a dip in the voice. In running speech it is often just a low pitch. Marked with a caron: mǎ (ㄇㄚˇ).

• Fourth tone — falling

  Drops sharply from high to low, like a firm command or the English “No!”. Marked with a grave accent: mà (ㄇㄚˋ).

• Neutral tone — light and short

  Quick, soft and unstressed, with no pitch of its own — its height depends on the tone before it. It carries no tone mark, as in the second syllable of māma (mom) or the particle ma. In zhuyin it takes a leading dot (˙ㄇㄚ).

Second vs. third tone

The pair learners mix up most is the rising second tone and the dipping third tone. Both can sound “low” in the middle, but the second tone keeps climbing to a high finish, while the third tone sinks to the bottom before any rise. When a third tone is said in isolation or stressed, let it dip all the way down — that low bottom is what tells it apart from the second tone.

Tone sandhi: when two third tones meet, the first is pronounced as a second (rising) tone — nǐ hǎo actually sounds like ní hǎo. We keep the pinyin written as two third tones (its dictionary form); only the pronunciation changes, so what you read and what you hear differ here.

Tone-pair practice grid

Most everyday Mandarin words are two syllables, so the real challenge is hearing tones in combination. Each cell below pairs a first-syllable tone (rows) with a second-syllable tone (columns) and gives a common word — tap the play button to hear it, or open the word for full details.