The four contours in plain terms
PRODUCT PAGE
What are Mandarin tones, and why four is not the whole story
A tone is a pitch pattern that belongs to the syllable. Four tones plus a neutral tone is the standard count, and the exceptions are what learners notice last.
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OUTPUT PREVIEW
你吃饭了吗？
Have you eaten?
QUICK ANSWER
Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral tone. Each tone is a pitch contour on the syllable: high and flat, rising, dipping, falling, and a short weak tone that inherits its pitch from the syllable before. Tones are lexical — change the tone and you change the word.
WHAT YOU GET
A focused path from speech to subtitle file.
The neutral tone and where it appears
Why the third tone looks different in a sentence than in a textbook
HOW IT WORKS
The five, briefly
- 01
First: high and flat, no movement.
- 02
Second: rising from a low start.
- 03
Third: low and dipping — the full dip-and-rise only at the end of a phrase.
- 04
Fourth: falling sharply from high to low.
- 05
Neutral: short and weak, pitch taken from the previous syllable.
Two things "four tones" hides
First, the neutral tone: a fifth category that is not a contour of its own. It appears on particles and on the second half of many two-syllable words, and it is why a transcription sometimes looks like it is missing a mark.
Second, tone sandhi: in connected speech the written tone is not always the spoken one. Two third tones in a row make the first a second; 不 and 一 change with what follows. A dictionary lists the citation tone; a speaker does not always say it.
The changes you will actually hear
| Written | Spoken | Why |
|---|---|---|
| nǐ hǎo 你好 | ní hǎo | two third tones → first becomes second |
| bù shì 不是 | bú shì | 不 before a fourth tone → second |
| yī tiān 一天 | yì tiān | 一 before 1st/2nd/3rd → fourth |
| yī xià 一下 | yí xià | 一 before a fourth tone → second |
Why subtitles keep the citation tone
Subtitle files and dictionaries list the tone a character has in isolation, because that is the stable, teachable form. The sandhi version depends on the sentence around it, which is exactly the kind of context a subtitle line does not carry.
So a subtitle showing 你好 as nǐ hǎo is correct and useful; it is not a transcription of how the actor said it.
USE YOUR OWN VIDEO
Sign in to uploadStart from a file, not an existing subtitle track.
Sign in first, then upload a local video, review the generated transcript, keep English optional, and download a subtitle file.
QUESTIONS
Tone questions
Are tones the same as intonation?
No. Intonation is the melody of a sentence and varies by speaker and mood. Tone belongs to the syllable and changes the word itself.
Do all dialects have four tones?
No. Cantonese has six (often described as nine with closed syllables), and other varieties differ. The four-tone system is Mandarin.
Can a tone be wrong and still be understood?
Often yes, from context. The cases where it fails are the ones that matter: names, numbers, and short answers.