Chinese tones: the four tones of Mandarin, explained

By Andreu Puy · 3 November 2026 · 8 min read

Tones are the intonations of Chinese, one on every syllable: the way your voice moves as you say it, staying high and level, rising, dipping or falling. In English, intonation works on the whole sentence, like the rise at the end of a question, and the words stay the same. Mandarin has sentence intonation as well, but each syllable also carries its own tone, and the same syllable with a different tone can be a different word.

Mandarin Chinese has four tones and a neutral one. The first tone is high and flat, the second rises, the third dips low, the fourth falls, and the neutral tone is short and light. In the four tones, ma is four different words: 妈 mā, mother, 麻 má, hemp, 马 mǎ, horse, and 骂 mà, to scold. Pinyin marks the four tones with an accent over a vowel, and the neutral tone has none.

The four tones, and the neutral one

Every syllable in Mandarin has a tone, and it belongs to the word as much as its consonants and vowels do.

The levels are relative to your own voice: a man’s first tone sits lower than a child’s, and both are right, because what carries the word is the shape.

How pinyin marks the tones

Pinyin, the official spelling of Chinese in the Latin alphabet, writes each tone as a mark over a vowel, and each mark draws its tone’s shape: ā á ǎ à. The neutral tone has no mark: ma. When a syllable has two or three vowels, the mark goes on a or e if there is one (hǎo, xiè), on the o of ou (dōu), and otherwise on the last vowel (guì, liù). On ü it sits above the dots: lǜ, green.

Where the marks can’t be typed, a number after the syllable stands in for them: ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4, and ma5 or plain ma for the neutral tone.

The third tone is usually low

The third tone has the longest shape, and you rarely say all of it. Alone, or at the end of a phrase, it dips and rises again: 马 mǎ . Before any other tone it only dips: it stays low and doesn’t climb back. In 好吃 hǎochī , tasty, the hǎo stays low and the chī starts high. Most third tones in a sentence come out this way, so think of the third tone as the low one.

Tones that change

A few tones change with the syllable that follows, which linguists call tone sandhi. Three are worth knowing from the start:

• Two third tones in a row: the first becomes a second tone. 你好 is written nǐ hǎo and said ní hǎo, and 水果, fruit, is said shuíguǒ. Pinyin still writes both as third tones.
• 不 bù, not: before a fourth tone it becomes a second tone. 不是 is bú shì, isn’t, but 不好 stays bù hǎo, not good.
• 一 yī, one: it keeps its first tone on its own, when you count, and in numbers such as 第一 dì-yī, first. Before a fourth tone it becomes a second tone, 一个 yí gè, one (of something), and before the other tones a fourth, 一天 yì tiān, one day.

Some dictionaries write 一 and 不 with their own tones, whatever comes next, and leave the change to you. The HSK word lists write them as they are said, and so does this page.

The neutral tone

Some syllables lose their tone and are said short and light. Grammar words do it, such as the question particle 吗 ma, 吧 ba, 的 de and 了 le, and so does the second half of many common words: 朋友 péngyou, friend, and 谢谢 xièxie, thank you.

The neutral tone has no pitch of its own: it takes it from the syllable before. In 妈妈 māma , mum, the second ma is light and a little lower than the first. After a third tone it comes out higher, as in 姐姐 jiějie, older sister. And in the question 妈妈骂马吗？ Māma mà mǎ ma? (is mum scolding the horse?), the last ma is light again.

Practise them in pairs

Most Chinese words have two syllables: about four in five of the 11,000 words in the new HSK exam syllabus are two characters long. So the tones you say most are really pairs, each tone running into the next, and there are 20 of them, counting a neutral second syllable. Learn one word for each pair, and say it until the two tones come out as a single shape.

All 20 are words from the first three levels of the HSK.

Do tones really matter?

Yes. Many words differ only in their tones: 买 mǎi is to buy, and 卖 mài to sell. In a short phrase, with a menu in your hand, people will often understand you even with a tone off (more in our Chinese phrases for travel). In a conversation, wrong tones make you hard to follow, and sometimes say a different word.

Tones are also where beginners often slip: the syllable of a new word is easy to remember, its tone much less so. For the words learners get wrong most often in Hanzio’s pinyin review, and the tones they type instead, see the Chinese characters learners mix up.

How to learn the tones

• Learn each word with its tone. A word learned as ma and fixed later is a word learned twice.
• Listen, then copy. Play a word, say it, and play it again to compare.
• Exaggerate at first. Make the first tone higher, the third lower and the fourth steeper than feels natural. You can relax once the shapes come by themselves.
• Practise in pairs, with the 20 words above.
• Give each tone a colour and a gesture. Trace its shape in the air with your hand as you say it.
• Record yourself, and compare it with the original.
• Come back to it. Recall each word’s tones again the next day and a few days later.

Learning tones with Hanzio

Every word in Hanzio’s dictionary has its sound, so you hear its tones before you say them, and the help on each word’s page has a tone guide that plays ma in all five. The pinyin is coloured by tone in reviews, on the pinyin keyboard and on every word’s page, so 马 mǎ and 骂 mà never look the same. You can change the colours in the settings.

In the pinyin review you type a word’s syllables, then draw each tone: a flat, rising, dipping or falling stroke, or a tap for the neutral tone. If you prefer buttons, the settings have them. Get only the tone wrong, and the word comes back as a draw-the-tone question when you retry the cards you missed. And in practice, a word whose mistakes are mostly tones is asked by its tones alone.

Frequently asked questions

How many tones does Mandarin Chinese have?

Four, plus a neutral tone: high and flat (mā), rising (má), dipping (mǎ) and falling (mà). The neutral tone is short and light, with no shape of its own, which is why some books count five tones.

Which Chinese tone is the hardest?

Many learners find the third tone hardest, because it changes the most: it dips and rises again only alone or at the end of a phrase, stays low before other tones, and becomes a second tone before another third. When listening, the second and third tones are the pair most often confused, as both rise at the end.

Will people understand me if my tones are wrong?

Often, in a short phrase where the context is clear. But many words differ only in their tones, like 买 mǎi, to buy, and 卖 mài, to sell, so in a longer conversation wrong tones make you hard to follow.

Does Cantonese have more tones than Mandarin?

Yes. Cantonese is usually taught with six tones. Some descriptions count nine, adding three short tones on syllables that end in p, t or k.

How do you write Chinese tones without tone marks?

With a number after each syllable: ma1, ma2, ma3 and ma4 for the four tones, and ma5 or plain ma for the neutral one.

Sources: the tone marks from the Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet (汉语拼音方案, 1958); the five-level scale from Yuen Ren Chao, “A system of tone-letters” (1930); the second and third tones from Shen and Lin, “A perceptual study of Mandarin tones 2 and 3” (1991); Cantonese from the Education University of Hong Kong; the words and their levels from the 2025 HSK exam syllabus. The recordings are a synthesised voice.