Mandarin pronunciation practice

Tone changes are applied the way people speak

Dictionaries list each character with its own tone, and that is often not how it sounds in a sentence. The voice applies the changes native speakers make: 不 becomes bú before a fourth tone (不是 búshì), 一 changes with the next syllable (一个 yígè, 一天 yìtiān), two third tones in a row become second plus third (你好 níhǎo), and particles such as 的, 了 and 吗 are neutral. Hearing these changes in full sentences is the fastest way to stop sounding like a dictionary.

Characters with several readings are read by the word they belong to: 银行 is yínháng, 行长 is hángzhǎng, 长大 is zhǎngdà and 很长 is hěn cháng.

A practice routine that works

Generate a short passage at 0.8×. In the Parts list, click a sentence to play from there, pause after it and repeat it aloud, matching the melody before worrying about single sounds. When you can follow it, raise the speed to 1× and do the same. Last, download the MP3 and shadow it during a walk or commute.

Keep the passages short, five to ten sentences. Long texts are easier to listen to and harder to practise with.

Choosing voices

There are 100 Mandarin voices, 55 female and 45 male. Twelve are shown first; the rest are under More voices, and every one has a listen button that works before anything is downloaded. Practising the same sentence with a female and a male voice helps you hear which parts are the tone and which parts are the speaker.

All voices speak standard Mandarin as heard in mainland China. Traditional characters are accepted and converted internally before reading. Cantonese is not supported.

What the tool does not show

The page reads text aloud; it does not display pinyin or tone marks under the characters. Keep your pinyin in your notes or textbook and use the audio to check it. If you type pinyin itself, it is read as English letters, so paste characters.