Tones

        Chinese is a tonal language. Tones are very important in Mandarin, i.e., tones change the meaning of words. Since Mandarin has a limited number of syllables, there are a lot of homophones whose meaning varies with the tone.

            Mandarine is normally said to have just four tones. The following diagram shows how the tones are pronounced in relation to each other.

The four tones can be diagramed as following:

1st Tone        2nd Tone       3rd Tone        4th Tone                
 Tonechart

       Tone marks are placed on toop the main vowel of syllabe. The main vowel can be incetified according to the following sequence: a- o- e- i- u- ü. For instance, in hao the main vowel is a; in luo, the main vovwel is o.

Please listen to the following Chinese syllables with
tones and read after.
1. lǎo   2. hào  3. jiā  4. lún  5. wén  6. huà  7. liáng  8. měi  9. fāng
Listen and repeat
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