Chinese Tones Test & Practice
Play a syllable, then say which of the four tones you heard. Get one wrong and the chart and rules below explain exactly why — including the tone changes that catch almost everyone.
Tone test声调测试
Two ways to test yourself. Listen & choose speaks a word out loud using your browser's built-in text-to-speech — you pick the tone from the sound alone. Symbol match shows a pinyin syllable with its tone mark and asks you to name the tone, which is the fastest way to stop confusing ǎ with á.
The four tones, with the classic examples四声
Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral one. The diagram below is the standard way of drawing them: a pitch line from left to right, high at the top. Nobody speaks in these exact shapes, but the direction of each one is what your ear has to learn.
Same syllable, four different words
This is the whole point of tones. Below are — syllables that exist in all four tones with everyday characters — search yours, or press 🔊 to hear it. Bear in mind that text-to-speech reads the character, not the pinyin spelling, so it is the word you are hearing.
| Syllable | 1st tone ˉ | 2nd tone ˊ | 3rd tone ˇ | 4th tone ˋ |
|---|
Not every syllable in Mandarin has all four tones with a common character. 36 of them do, and those are the ones worth drilling first.
Tone marks you can copy and paste声调符号
The tone marks are separate characters — there is no key for them on a normal keyboard, which is why so many people end up typing "ma3" instead. Click any character below to copy it, then paste it wherever you need it.
Click a character to copy it.
Where the tone mark goes标调规则
Four rules, in priority order. Once you have seen two or three examples you will stop needing them.
If there is an A, the mark goes on the A
This overrides everything else. mǎi → mǎi (not maǐ), hǎo, xiǎo, guān.
买 to buy · 好 good · 小 small · 关 to close
No A? Look for O or E
Those two take the mark on their own. duō, xiè, guó, hěn.
多 many · 谢 to thank · 国 country · 很 very
In IU and UI, the mark goes on the second letter
Because I comes before U in the priority order, the mark lands on the vowel that follows. liù, guì, jiǔ, shuǐ.
六 six · 贵 expensive · 九 nine · 水 water
A vowel on its own just takes it
And when the mark lands on an I, the dot disappears. wǔ, yī, nǐ, lǜ, nǚ.
五 five · 一 one · 你 you · 绿 green · 女 woman
Two tone changes worth learning on day one变调
Tones are written as they are pronounced in isolation, but in real speech two of them move. Chinese speakers do this automatically and mostly do not notice.
Third tone + third tone → first one becomes second
nǐ + hǎo → ní hǎo (not nǐ hǎo)
hěn + hǎo → hén hǎo — 很好, "very good"
Still written nǐ hǎo and hěn hǎo. The spelling never changes, only your voice.
不 bù becomes bú before a fourth tone
bù + shì → bú shì — 不是, "is not"
bù + cuò → bú cuò — 不错, "not bad"
Before any other tone it stays fourth: bù hǎo, bù shuō, bù lái.
一 yī follows the opposite pattern
Before a fourth tone it rises to second: yī + gè → yí gè — 一个, "one (of something)".
Before first, second or third tone it falls to fourth: yì tiān (一天, one day), yì nián, yì qǐ.
When you are counting, or the word stands alone, it keeps its first tone: yī, èr, sān.
The neutral tone is a real thing
Some syllables are spoken short and flat with no tone at all. It is written with no mark: māma (妈妈, mum), péngyou (朋友, friend), dōngxi (东西, thing).
You cannot guess which ones from a dictionary, which is why the neutral tone is best learned as part of the word.
Print a tone-mark sheet练习纸
Twenty characters, with the pinyin underneath and the tone mark left off. Write the mark in, then check against the chart above — every character on this sheet appears there. Each printout is a fresh random set, so you can run it as a class exercise.
Printing works best in A4 with default margins. Everything except the sheet is hidden automatically.
Questions常见问题
What order do the four tones go in?
First (ˉ, high and level), second (ˊ, rising), third (ˇ, low and dipping), fourth (ˋ, falling). That order is fixed — when Chinese learners say "tone 3" they always mean the dipping one. On a pinyin keyboard you can also type them as numbers: ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4.
What do the tone numbers mean?
They are simply the order of the tones: 1 = high and level, 2 = rising, 3 = dipping, 4 = falling, 5 = neutral (spoken short and flat, no mark). Most Chinese input methods let you type ni3hao3 and get 你好, which is why so many learners never bother with the actual marks.
Why is the third tone so hard to hear?
Because in ordinary speech it is rarely a full dipping tone. Before another third tone it turns into a rising second tone (nǐ hǎo becomes ní hǎo), and before any other tone it is usually just low and cut short. The full dip only shows up when the syllable stands alone or comes at the end of a phrase. Teaching materials draw the dipping line, so people listen for a dip that mostly is not there.
Does this page use a real recording?
No. The 🔊 buttons use your browser's built-in text-to-speech, which means the voice is whatever your device ships with — the quality varies, and some devices have no Mandarin voice installed at all. We say this plainly because it matters for judging what you hear: text-to-speech is fine for tone direction, but it is not a substitute for listening to real people. If nothing plays, the listening test will tell you what to install.
Can I practise tones without a teacher?
Yes, and the tests on this page are the main thing you need. Two habits help more than drills. First, record yourself saying a word and play it back immediately — the gap between what you think you said and what came out is usually obvious in the recording, and completely invisible while you are speaking. Second, learn the tone pattern of something you actually care about, like your own Chinese name, and repeat that instead of random syllables.
How long until tones stop being a problem?
Hearing them correctly comes first and takes a few weeks of regular short sessions. Producing them reliably takes longer — months, not days, and it is the last thing that sounds fully natural. That is normal and not a sign you are doing something wrong. What you should not do is put tones aside and build vocabulary without them, because that vocabulary has to be relearned later.
Tones sorted? Now use them
The Starter Kit gives you the first characters and phrases to say out loud — free, no signup. When you want the full spoken set with pinyin on every line, that is the 500 phrases pack.
Still working on the sounds themselves? The pinyin chart covers every syllable in Mandarin, the tone guide goes deeper on why tones matter, and the name generator gives you a name whose tones you can practise on. If it is characters you are after, the stroke order tool prints practice sheets.