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Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "不" in Chinese?
boo with a hard falling pitch — except when the next word also falls, in which case it becomes a rising bú. The tone alternation is the entire story of this word.
bù
One of only two words in the language with its own personal tone rule. 不 is a fourth tone by default, but immediately before another fourth tone it becomes a rising second: bú shì, bú duì, bú qù. Before first, second and third tones it stays falling: bù chī, bù lái, bù hǎo. And when it is sandwiched inside a verb phrase, as in kàn bu jiàn, it usually loses its tone entirely.
Listen: 不
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我不明白。
Wǒ bù míngbai.
I don't understand.
Listen: 我不明白。
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我不明白。 keeps 不 in its default falling form, because míng is a second tone and triggers no change. So the sentence runs low, falling, rising, level — wǒ dips, bù drops, míng climbs, bai is toneless. Compare this with 我不是, where shì would force bú upward, and you have the rule demonstrated in two nearly identical sentences.
Where English speakers slip
Learners either never apply the rule and say bù everywhere, or over-apply it and say bú everywhere. Both are noticeable. The reliable method is to check the tone of the syllable directly after: only a falling one triggers the change. A separate trap is the reduced form inside verb compounds — zhǎo bu dào, tīng bu jiàn — where the word is toneless and quick, and giving it a full tone there makes the phrase sound artificially spelled-out.