Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "从" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 从 in Chinese?

从 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tsʰʊŋ˧˥/. It means “from.” tsoong with a real puff of air, rising in pitch. The initial is an aspirated "ts" at the teeth, and the ending is a rounded back nasal.

tsoong with a real puff of air, rising in pitch. The initial is an aspirated "ts" at the teeth, and the ending is a rounded back nasal.

从 /tsʰʊŋ˧˥/

cóng

The rise is fixed in every context. Where 从 matters tonally is as the opening word of a phrase — it sets the starting pitch for everything after it, and because it ends high, whatever follows tends to begin from a high position rather than from neutral.

Listen: 从

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Sound it out

c- The trap in pinyin. Written c, pronounced "ts" with strong aspiration — the tongue tip touches the teeth ridge, releases into a hiss, and a gust of breath follows. It is the aspirated partner of z.

-ong A rounded vowel closer to "oo" than to "oh", closed at the back of the mouth with ng. The lips stay rounded throughout, which distinguishes it clearly from -eng.

cóng (rising) Pitch climbs from mid to high across the vowel and into the nasal. The nasal ending actually helps here: it gives the rise extra length to complete itself.

Hear it in a sentence

我从上海来。

Wǒ cóng Shànghǎi lái.

I come from Shanghai.

Listen: 我从上海来。

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我从上海来。 places cóng between wǒ and Shànghǎi. Wǒ keeps its full dip since cóng is rising. Then Shànghǎi has a falling shàng and a dipping hǎi, and lái rises at the end. So the sentence climbs, drops, dips and climbs again — and the two rises, on cóng and lái, bracket the place name neatly.

Where English speakers slip

The letter c is the problem. Almost every beginner reads it as English "k" or "s" and produces "kong" or "song", neither of which is the word. It must begin with an audible "ts", the sound at the end of "cats", and it must have breath behind it. Under-aspirating turns it into zóng instead. The rounded -ong is the secondary issue: an English "awng" is too open and unrounded.