Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

24 great resources for improving your Mandarin pronunciation

Image credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

Image credit: Julia Freeman-Woolpert

This post will contain my favourite resources for learning and teaching pronunciation. All of them are already listed on Hacking Chinese Resources, but I still think that highlighting the most useful resources for this month’s challenge will be useful.

The best resources for learning Mandarin pronunciation

I usually limit my best-resource articles to ten, but since pronunciation is my favourite topic, I’m not going to stop there. I’m not going to give you everything I have (you wouldn’t want that), but I am going to give you more than you need.

Probably a lot more. To make the recommendations more navigable, I have sorted them into four categories; feel free to skip those you don’t think you need.

  1. Basic sound references
  2. Pronunciation explained
  3. Advice on learning pronunciation
  4. Useful software and applications

If you have any other resources you think ought to be on this list or on Hacking Chinese Resources, please leave a comment or contact me.

Hacking Chinese Pronunciation: Speaking with Confidence

Before I start recommending other people’s resources for learning pronunciation, I’ll shamelessly promote my own pronunciation video course. It covers everything you need to know to speak clearly and with confidence! You can regard it as a comprehensive guide that includes almost everything else I mention in this article, but in one carefully structured course.

Hacking Chinese Pronunciation: Speaking with Confidence

The rest of the resources here are provided by other people, though, most of them for free.

1. Basic sound references

When you start learning Chinese, it’s essential that you have proper models to mimic. It’s also important that you look up how to pronounce syllables you’re not familiar with. There are several freely available resources that include all syllables read with all tones. I have included more than one here because as I have explained, listening to more than one voice is helpful.

  • Yabla Pinyin Chart With Audio – A web-based Pinyin chart with audio for all syllables with all tones. Also includes possible combinations that actually don’t exist as real words, which might be good for practice.
  • Pinyin audio and video on YouTube – This clip introduces all the initials and finals in Pinyin (using the first tone). It adds value to the rest of the resources here because the camera is pointed to the speaker’s mouth, showing clearly how the lips move.
  • Lost Theory Mandarin Phonetics – Another web-based resource with recorded audio for all syllables with all tones. You can also get the “spelling” of the syllable read to you, ie. Initial, final and then the whole syllable.
  • New Concept Mandarin introduction to Pinyin – Yet another web-based Pinyin chart with a different voice. It’s slightly more annoying to navigate, but only contains real syllables, which might be good as a reality check.
  • ChinesePod Introduction to Pinyin – This app is available for free for both Android and iOS and contains the full Pinyin chart with audio. It also explains the sounds, although not always accurately (there is no “nasal U” in Mandarin).
  • Sinosplice Tone Pair Drills – As the name implied, this is tone pair drilling with audio. You should really know how to pronounce all combinations and here you have them with audio references.
  • AllSet Learning Pinyin – This resource is only available for iPhone and iPad, but it’s free to download. It contains audio for all syllables in Mandarin (including tones) as well as some other useful features.
  • Pinyin Chart in IPA – In case you know the International Phonetica Alphabet (IPA) this chart provides you with a transcription of all syllables in Mandarin. It also highlight some potential issues with spelling in Pinyin.

2. Pronunciation explained

  • Zein on Mandarin Chinese Phonetics – This is a basic introduction and is suitable for most beginners. I don’t really like talking too much about equivalent sounds in English, but he does a fair job most of the time.
  • Chinese Pronunciation on Sinosplice – This is a short but good introduction to some of the sounds that are unique to Mandarin (at least from the perspective of a native English speaker). It’s not very exhaustive, but still a good introduction.
  • Standard Chinese Phonology on Wikipedia – This article is quite good and is the next step if you want to go beyond just describing how sounds are pronounced. There are also lots of useful references here.
  • Pinyin Traps and Pitfalls – My article about various common problems students have with Pinyin. These problems mostly exist because people read Pinyin as if it were a phonetic alphabet instead of a transcription system.
  • The Phonology of Standard Chinese (San Duan-mu) – This book is a great resource for anyone who thinks they know a little bit about phonetics and phonology and want a more thorough discussion. Do not read this book without having read at least one book about phonology and one about Chinese phonetics. The link goes to my review.

3. Advice on learning pronunciation

  • Tones are more important than you think – This is an article about the importance of tones. I don’t think anyone who reads this guide thinks tones aren’t important, but it might be good to have some arguments to convince your friends.
  • Learning the third tone in Chinese – I have spent a fair amount of time researching the third tone in Mandarin. In this article, I share some of the results and discuss what they mean for you as a learner.
  • A smart method to discover problems with tones – I have referred to this article already, but I want to mention it again. It introduces a really neat way of testing pronunciation without having a teacher. Everybody should try this at least once.
  • Recording yourself to improve speaking ability – This is a closer look at how you can use recording as a tool to improve pronunciation. Most of what I cover here has appeared in different parts of this guide.
  • John Pasden’s tips on Chinese pronunciation – I have referred to specific parts of this site earlier, but this is the main page for everything about pronunciation. John has many good things to say about pronunciation, listen to him!
  • Extending Mnemonics to Tones and Pronunciation – This is isn’t specifically about how to learn to pronounce Chinese, but instead about how to remember the sounds (this is surprisingly often the problem; you have to remember how a word is pronounced if you want to be able to pronounce it correctly).
  • Improving Foreign Language Pronunciation – This is an interview done with me over at Language is Culture. I talk with David Mansaray about learning to pronounce Chinese (and other languages). It isn’t directly useful as a guide for how to change pronunciation, but might be interesting to some readers. The audio interview is about 70 minutes long.

4. Useful software and applications

  • Audacity – This program is excellent for mimicking purposes, but also for careful listening in general. It’s easy to use and available for free on most platforms. It’s a powerful audio editing and playback software that allows you to view and edit audio, as well as slow down,
    speed up, mute channels and much more. The link goes to my article about using Audacity and I introduce more tricks there.
  • Praat – This is one of the most widely used programs when it comes to scientific analysis of pronunciation. The program is not made for students specifically, but you can get pretty far just by using the material available on the website. Praat is free and works on most platforms. One of the most important features for students is to be able to see pitch contours and compare these to those of native speakers.
  • Pleco – This is my favourite Chinese dictionary (available for both Android and iOS), but that’s not why I mention it here. If you feel like spending some money, you can buy one or two voices that read most words in the dictionary. This is not synthesised sound, they actually
    record each word! Mimic your way to better pronunciation, don’t improvise or guess the right pronunciation.
  • WaiChinese – This app allows you to listen and record your own pronunciation, and to compare it with target audio. More importantly, it allows you to submit your recordings for corrections by a native teacher! This requires manual work and so costs money, but it’s a neat way to get quick feedback on your pronunciation.

Good luck!

Having the right resources is just part of successful language learning. Just as you won’t get strong simply be reading how to do push-ups, you won’t get good at pronouncing Chinese unless you practice. Without that, no theory in the world will help you. With the right theory, though, your practice becomes not only more effective, but usually also more enjoyable. Good luck!






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7 comments

  1. Suada says:

    I definitely would add Google hangouts with Yangyang Cheng. She has a knack of explaining pinyin in an interesting and clear way.

  2. Xiaofeng says:

    A few more:
    Arch Chinese’s Pinyin Table: http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_pinyin.html (similar to the few you listed under “basic sound references”)
    Pinyin Practice: http://pinyinpractice.com/tones.htm (great site for listening practice)
    iFlyDictation: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iflydictation/id411611739?mt=8 (my students love using this app to test their own pronunciation)

  3. lechuan says:

    Yang Yang’s video pinyin chart is also pretty awesome.

  4. george says:

    Here in southern Taiwan, if I talked with a standard Beijing phonology — nobody would talk with me after a few opening words.

    To put it simply, phonology varies from location to location and 500 kilometers can shift everything. It is the same in the USA.

    So after all the ‘formal’ introduction, one really needs to just use local resources. For me, that is TV and radio.

    But I did spend six months of copying the Ba-Pa-Ma-Fa chart once a day, then another six months copying the Roman Pinyin chart. The key to a good start is to spend 15 minutes a day on this. And to be willing to spend at least one month per year in phonology revisions.

    Don’t get sloppy and forgetful.

  5. Please can you add our Hanping Chinese SoundBox app for Android? It includes all single-syllable pronunciations (free) as well as all tone-pairs (a limited number for free as well as thousands more for a small in-app purchase). Supports both Pinyin and Zhuyin: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.embermitre.hanping.app.soundbox

    Also, our Hanping Chinese Dictionary app includes studio-quality multi-syllable audio recordings (HSK1 for free, HSK2-5 as in-app purchase, HSK6 coming soon).

    1. Hanping SoundBox is now rolled into our main Chinese dictionary apps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=4845954736942800726

  6. Craig says:

    This tool lets you check your pronunciation, including tones: https://accentlab.net/mandarin_words You speak into the microphone, and it will transcribe what you said into Pīnyīn. It also lets you practice HSK vocabulary.

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