Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "电影" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 电影 in Chinese?

电影 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tjɛn˥˩.iŋ˨˩˦/. It means “movie / film.” dyen-YING: a hard-falling first syllable with a tight "eh", then a low sagging second with a back nasal.

dyen-YING: a hard-falling first syllable with a tight "eh", then a low sagging second with a back nasal.

电影 /tjɛn˥˩.iŋ˨˩˦/

diànyǐng

A plunge into a sag, with no conversion — the rule needs two dipping tones. The nasal contrast between the two syllables is a useful check, since the first closes at the teeth ridge and the second at the back of the mouth, and both contain an "ee"-like vowel to compare them against.

Listen: 电影

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

Sound it out

diàn Unaspirated d into the -ian final — quick "ee" glide, tight "eh", front n. The pitch plunges from high to low.

yǐng A bare "ee" written with a y, sealed at the back of the mouth by ng. The voice sinks to the floor, and the nasal ending gives the low stretch time to register.

Hear it in a sentence

今晚我们看电影吧？

Jīnwǎn wǒmen kàn diànyǐng ba?

Shall we watch a movie tonight?

Listen: 今晚我们看电影吧？

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

今晚我们看电影吧？ protects wǒ with the toneless men, so it keeps its dip. Then kàn plunges, diàn plunges again, yǐng dips, and ba fades toneless at that low pitch. The suggestion therefore ends at the bottom of the range on a weightless particle, with no interrogative rise at all.

Where English speakers slip

Pinyin's -ian opens out to "dyahn", and the two nasals get merged so both syllables rhyme. Feel where each one finishes. Aspirating the d gives tiàn. And because the sentence ends with the particle 吧 and a question mark, learners add a rise on ba that Mandarin does not permit.