Pinyin chart with audio

Read the spelling, then hear the sound

Where the tone mark goes

Mark a first, then e. In ou, mark o. In iu and ui, mark the second vowel: liú, shuǐ.

u and ü

Keep the dots in nǚ and lǜ. After j, q, x and y, write u without the dots: jù, qù, xū, yǔ.

The third tone in speech

These isolated recordings use a dipping third tone. In connected speech it often stays low; before another third tone it becomes rising.

A neutral syllable has no tone mark

It is shorter, and its pitch depends on the preceding tone. Listen to māma 妈妈.

Convert numbered pinyin to tone marks

Use pinyin in a text

Read a short story, hide pinyin for the first pass, then show it and check the recording.

Sources and recordings

Syllables: Chen Wang. Word example: Yue Tan. audio-cmn, curated by Hugo Lopez / PLIDAM, INALCO, under CC BY-SA 3.0 US. Existing optimized MP3 recordings are reused unchanged from Laowai’s pronunciation library.

Spelling reference: 汉语拼音方案. Pronunciation guidance: 普通话语音. The audio chart contains 409 recorded spellings; the PDF also includes yo.