Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "半" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 半 in Chinese?

半 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /pan˥˩/. It means “half.” bahn, dropping hard, with no puff of air. A broad open vowel and a front n.

bahn, dropping hard, with no puff of air. A broad open vowel and a front n.

半 /pan˥˩/

bàn

This drop never changes and it triggers the negator's switch to bú. In telling the time this syllable comes after a number and a measure word, so it usually lands at the end of a phrase — which means the descent can complete rather than being compressed by whatever follows.

Listen: 半

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

b- A closed-then-open lip gesture with breath held back — unaspirated, so neither the buzz of English b nor the puff of English p.

-an The broad "ah" of "father" as in "father", closed with the tongue tip at the ridge. More open than the vowel in English "ban".

bàn (falling) From the ceiling straight to the floor. The open vowel gives room for a full descent, so there is no reason to clip it.

Hear it in a sentence

现在两点半。

Xiànzài liǎng diǎn bàn.

It's half past two.

Listen: 现在两点半。

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

现在两点半。 has liǎng and diǎn adjacent, both dipping, so liǎng rises: xiànzài liáng diǎn bàn. Before that, xiàn and zài both fall. So the sentence delivers two drops, a converted rise, a dip and a final drop — five syllables covering the full pitch range twice over.

Where English speakers slip

Aspirating the b gives pàn. Keep the release silent. The nasal drifts back to bàng, which is a real word. And the liǎng diǎn conversion in the example sentence is one of the most frequently missed in the language, because telling the time is drilled early and the two numbers look like independent words on the page.