Mandarin Neutral Tone: Rules and Taiwan Usage
The neutral tone in Chinese is a short, light syllable with no fixed pitch. Where it is obligatory, where Taiwan reads a full tone instead, and how to mark it.
The neutral tone is a syllable with no tone of its own. It is short, light and unstressed, and its pitch is borrowed from the syllable before it. Pinyin shows it by writing no tone mark (吧 ba), and Zhuyin puts a dot before the syllable (˙ㄅㄚ). Some words must have it, such as the particles 的, 了, 嗎 and 吧. Others are neutral in Beijing speech but carry a full tone in the Taiwan dictionary, and that second group is where learners in Taiwan get confused.
All readings below were checked against the Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary on moedict.tw.
What the neutral tone sounds like
It is a reduced syllable, shorter and quieter than a normal one, with no pitch target of its own. What you hear depends on the tone that comes before it. As a rough guide, after a first tone it sits fairly low, after a second tone in the middle, after a third tone it is higher, and after a fourth tone it drops low. Textbooks differ on exact values, so use your ears and a teacher’s model rather than the numbers.
The practical habit is to say the first syllable clearly and let the second one fall away. In 爸爸 (bà ba, ㄅㄚˋ ˙ㄅㄚ), the second 爸 is not pronounced as a fourth tone. If you give it a full falling tone, the word sounds like two separate beats.
Where the neutral tone is obligatory
These are the cases that every standard treats as neutral.
Particles
| Word | Pinyin | Zhuyin | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 的 | de | ˙ㄉㄜ | links a modifier to a noun |
| 了 | le | ˙ㄌㄜ | completed action or change of state |
| 嗎 | ma | ˙ㄇㄚ | turns a statement into a yes-or-no question |
| 呢 | ne | ˙ㄋㄜ | ”and you?” questions, ongoing states |
| 吧 | ba | ˙ㄅㄚ | suggestion, softened command, “probably” |
| 們 | men | ˙ㄇㄣ | plural for people: 我們, 朋友們 |
One caveat on 們: the MOE dictionary lists mén (ㄇㄣˊ) first and gives men (˙ㄇㄣ) as the spoken form, but as the plural suffix it is neutral in practice.
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Several of these are also real characters with a full tone. 了 is liǎo (ㄌㄧㄠˇ) in 了解 (liǎo jiě) and 不了 (bù liǎo), and le (˙ㄌㄜ) as the particle. 嗎 has a second reading mǎ (ㄇㄚˇ) in the dictionary, but as a question particle it is always ma. 的 is dí in 的確 (dí què) and dì in 目的 (mù dì). The neutral-tone version is the grammar word. For how the 的/地/得 trio works, see the guide to 的, 地 and 得.
Suffixes and endings
The noun suffixes 子 and 頭 are neutral in the usual dictionary entries: 桌子 (zhuō zi, ㄓㄨㄛ ˙ㄗ), 椅子 (yǐ zi, ㄧˇ ˙ㄗ), 孩子 (hái zi, ㄏㄞˊ ˙ㄗ), 石頭 (shí tou, ㄕˊ ˙ㄊㄡ), 木頭 (mù tou, ㄇㄨˋ ˙ㄊㄡ). Position words behave the same way: 晚上 (wǎn shang, ㄨㄢˇ ˙ㄕㄤ), 早上 (zǎo shang, ㄗㄠˇ ˙ㄕㄤ), 上面 (shàng mian, ㄕㄤˋ ˙ㄇㄧㄢ).
Verb suffix 得 in 覺得 (jué de, ㄐㄩㄝˊ ˙ㄉㄜ) is neutral too, as is the second syllable of many everyday items: 衣服 (yī fu, ㄧ ˙ㄈㄨ), 窗戶 (chuāng hu, ㄔㄨㄤ ˙ㄏㄨ), 豆腐 (dòu fu, ㄉㄡˋ ˙ㄈㄨ), 舒服 (shū fu, ㄕㄨ ˙ㄈㄨ), 麻煩 (má fan, ㄇㄚˊ ˙ㄈㄢ), 意思 (yì si, ㄧˋ ˙ㄙ), 認識 (rèn shi, ㄖㄣˋ ˙ㄕ).
Reduplicated family terms
The second syllable of a doubled kinship word is neutral: 爸爸 (bà ba), 媽媽 (mā ma, ㄇㄚ ˙ㄇㄚ), 妹妹 (mèi mei, ㄇㄟˋ ˙ㄇㄟ), 哥哥 (gē ge, ㄍㄜ ˙ㄍㄜ). Compare 謝謝, which the dictionary writes as xiè xie (ㄒㄧㄝˋ ˙ㄒㄧㄝ), and 漂亮 (piào liang, ㄆㄧㄠˋ ˙ㄌㄧㄤ).
When the neutral tone changes the word
For a small group of words, the neutral tone is the only difference between two meanings. The MOE dictionary lists them as separate entries.
| Word | Full tone | Neutral second syllable |
|---|---|---|
| 東西 | dōng xī, ㄉㄨㄥ ㄒㄧ: east and west | dōng xi, ˙ㄒㄧ: a thing, an object |
| 客氣 | kè qì, ㄎㄜˋ ㄑㄧˋ: a burst of courage on impulse | kè qi, ˙ㄑㄧ: polite, courteous |
| 老子 | lǎo zǐ, ㄌㄠˇ ㄗˇ: Laozi, the philosopher | lǎo zi, ˙ㄗ: father, or a boastful “I” |
| 告訴 | gào sù, ㄍㄠˋ ㄙㄨˋ: to file a criminal complaint (legal term) | gào su, ˙ㄙㄨ: to tell, to inform |
The ones you will use most are 東西 and 告訴. In the MOE dictionary the neutral 東西 (dōng xi) is “a thing”, while dōng xī is “east and west”. The everyday word for “to tell” is 告訴 with a neutral second syllable (gào su), as in 告訴我 (gào su wǒ); gào sù is the legal sense. One caution about compounds: the MOE entry for 買東西 is written mǎi dōng xī with a full tone, so a dictionary entry for a phrase does not always follow the single-word entry. For 客氣, the polite sense is kè qi, as in 你太客氣了 (nǐ tài kè qi le). In the set phrase 不客氣, “you’re welcome”, many Taiwanese speakers say a full bú kè qì.
The same pattern shows up in 地方. As “place”, 地方 is normally dì fāng (ㄉㄧˋ ㄈㄤ) in the MOE entry, and dì fang (˙ㄈㄤ) is a separate, older sense (a village constable). So not every neutral-tone pair is a useful one for learners; treat the table above as the set worth remembering.
Where Taiwan writes a full tone
This is the part that surprises people who learned from mainland materials. A number of words that Beijing speakers lighten are given a full tone in the MOE dictionary. The Taiwan form below is what moedict.tw shows. The mainland form is the one in mainland dictionaries (cross-checked on Wiktionary, which lists both).
| Word | Taiwan MOE | Mainland |
|---|---|---|
| 朋友 | péng yǒu (ㄆㄥˊ ㄧㄡˇ) | péngyou |
| 喜歡 | xǐ huān (ㄒㄧˇ ㄏㄨㄢ) | xǐhuan |
| 先生 | xiān shēng (ㄒㄧㄢ ㄕㄥ) | xiānsheng |
| 學生 | xué shēng (ㄒㄩㄝˊ ㄕㄥ) | xuésheng |
| 時候 | shí hòu (ㄕˊ ㄏㄡˋ) | shíhou |
| 事情 | shì qíng (ㄕˋ ㄑㄧㄥˊ) | shìqing |
| 清楚 | qīng chǔ (ㄑㄧㄥ ㄔㄨˇ) | qīngchu |
| 休息 | xiū xí (ㄒㄧㄡ ㄒㄧˊ) | xiūxi |
| 兒子 | ér zǐ (ㄦˊ ㄗˇ) | érzi |
| 頭髮 | tóu fǎ (ㄊㄡˊ ㄈㄚˇ) | tóufa |
Two cautions. First, a dictionary entry records a standard, and speech varies around it. Many Taiwanese speakers lighten some of these syllables in fast, casual speech, and how much varies by speaker, word and context. If you hear 學生 with a short second syllable in Taipei, you are not hearing a mistake. Second, the mainland column is the common standard form, and some entries have variants.
What to do with this: if you study in Taiwan, learn the full-tone readings from your textbook and dictionary, and expect to hear both. If your pinyin app marks 朋友 as péngyou and your Taiwanese teacher says it with a clear third tone, the teacher is following the MOE dictionary. For a broader view of the two standards, see the Taiwanese vs mainland Mandarin overview.
Some words are listed twice in the Taiwan dictionary, with the two forms carrying different senses. 學習 has an entry xué xí (ㄒㄩㄝˊ ㄒㄧˊ) and a separate entry xué xi (˙ㄒㄧ), so check the sense in the entry before you treat either one as the everyday reading.
How dictionaries and apps mark it
- Pinyin: no tone mark. 吧 is written ba. Some tools show a tone number 5 or 0 (ba5, ba0) in their input boxes.
- Zhuyin: a dot, ˙, written before the syllable in running text: ˙ㄅㄚ. In vertical text it appears above the syllable.
- MOE dictionary: shows both the Zhuyin dot and the pinyin without a mark, and lists the full-tone and neutral forms as separate heteronyms where both are standard.
Because a word can be neutral in one source and full in another, check which dictionary your flashcards come from before you decide a reading is wrong.
A short routine for learning them
- Learn the particles first. They are neutral in every system, and they are among the most frequent words you will meet.
- Learn 子 and 頭 words as whole words, with the second syllable light from the start.
- Pick one standard for the full-tone group (these articles follow the Taiwan MOE) and keep to it.
- Record yourself saying 我們去吃東西吧 (wǒ men qù chī dōng xi ba) and listen for any syllable that gets a full tone where it should be light.
Zhong’s audio is recorded by native Taiwanese speakers, which makes it a reasonable reference for the Taiwan forms. You can also practise the full list of tone combinations with the tone pairs guide, which includes the neutral-tone rows.
Related reading
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