Text Box: Introduction to Chinese Tones

Text Box:   Words in Mandarin that have the same pronunciation can have different meanings depending on how the word is said. The "tone" of a word describes how the the pitch of the speaker's voice changes as the word is said. There are four tones, as well as one neutral tone, which we will cover in detail in the Tones lesson. The tones are represented in pin-yin by marks above the words.       previous page                                             index                                                 next page