Pinyin Tones: The Four Tone Marks and How to Type Them

Pinyin writes Mandarin sounds in letters you already know, and a small mark over the vowel shows the tone.

What Are the Four Tones?

Each tone is a shape your voice makes on the syllable. The course says ma four ways, so you hear the tone change and nothing else.

The light tone is sometimes called the neutral tone. In 妈妈 (māma), the first ma has the 1st tone, and the second one is quick and light, so it gets no mark. 谢谢 (xièxie, thank you) works the same way.

Where Does the Tone Mark Go?

The mark sits on the main vowel of the syllable, as in hǎo (好, good), where it goes on the a. A mark on i takes the place of its dot, as in nǐ (你, you).

The dots on ü stay after n and l, as in nǚ (女). After j, q and x, pinyin leaves the dots off, so ju, qu and xu are all said with the ü sound. A syllable that starts with the ü sound is written yu, without dots.

How Do You Type Pinyin Tone Marks?

Copy a marked vowel from the box above, or set up your computer to type the marks.

• 💻MacAdd the ABC – Extended input source in Keyboard settings. Open the Keyboard Viewer and hold Option: the keys outlined in orange add a mark to the next vowel.
• 🪟Word on WindowsType a letter's code, such as 01CE for ǎ or 01DA for ǚ, select just those four characters, and press Alt and X together.
• 📱iPhone and iPadThe Chinese (Simplified) Pinyin keyboard turns pinyin typed without marks into characters such as 你好. To get a marked vowel, copy it from the box above.

Where Did Pinyin Come From?

China's National People's Congress adopted pinyin on 11 February 1958, in a document called the Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet. The scheme uses 妈, 麻, 马, 骂 and 吗 to show the four tones and the light tone, the same ma words that learners still start with. In 1982, the international standard for writing Chinese in Latin letters, ISO 7098, was based on it.

How Can You Learn the Tones?

After a short look at how syllables work, the Pinyin course plays the four tones on the same syllable, then the light tone and the sounds that are new to English speakers, like zh, q and x. In the Bubblegum app, Poppy, your AI tutor, writes Mandarin lessons at your level, so you hear the tones in real sentences. Taiwan uses Zhuyin to show sounds, and our Zhuyin chart draws every symbol as a picture. The best way to learn Chinese covers what to do after the tones.

Frequently Asked Questions