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Pinyin Tone Chart: the 4 Mandarin Tones

Mandarin is a tonal language — the pitch contour of a syllable changes its meaning. The classic example: mā má mǎ mà are four different words. Here is everything you need to read and type tones.

The five tones

Where does the tone mark go?

The mark sits on the main vowel of the syllable, by a simple priority rule: if there is an a, mark it (hǎo); otherwise an e (xiè) or the o of "ou" (dōu); otherwise the last vowel (guì, xiū). The umlaut vowel ü keeps its dots under a tone mark: nǚ, lǜ.

Typing tones with tone numbers

Most learners type pinyin with tone numbers: hao3 for hǎo, nv3 for nǚ (v stands in for ü), ma5 or plain ma for the neutral tone. Hanzi Garden's quizzes accept both styles and convert numbers to marks as you type.

The tone changes you'll meet first (sandhi)

Three rules cover most real speech: a 3rd tone before another 3rd tone is pronounced 2nd (nǐ hǎo sounds like ní hǎo); 不 bù becomes bú before a 4th tone (bú shì); and 一 yī becomes yí before a 4th tone and yì before others (yí gè, yì tiān). Written pinyin usually keeps the original marks.

Ready to make tones stick? Practice every HSK word with audio and typing quizzes: