How to Pronounce '对不起': Chinese Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce 对不起 in Chinese?

对不起 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tweɪ˥˩.pu.tɕʰi˨˩˦/. It means “sorry / excuse me.” dway-bu-CHEE. The first syllable plummets, the middle one goes toneless, and the last dips low — a falling-flat-low shape you can practise as one gesture.

How do you pronounce "对不起" in Chinese?

dway-bu-CHEE. The first syllable plummets, the middle one goes toneless, and the last dips low — a falling-flat-low shape you can practise as one gesture.

对不起 /tweɪ˥˩.pu.tɕʰi˨˩˦/

duìbuqǐ

The interest here is that 不 has been demoted. In isolation it is a fourth tone and in some contexts a second, but inside this lexicalised apology it is simply toneless — a case where the sandhi rules never get a chance to apply because there is no tone left to change. The phrase runs heavy, weak, heavy.

Listen: 对不起

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Sound it out

duì An unaspirated d, then a rounded glide into "ay" — the whole thing rhymes roughly with "way" but starts with lip-rounding. The pitch drops from high to low in one fast movement.

bu This is 不, but here it has been swallowed into the middle of a set phrase and has no tone left at all. Short, weak, unaspirated: the lips just tap together and release.

qǐ Aspirated palatal q into a clean "ee", with the pitch low and level or gently rising at the very end. This is the syllable that carries the apology's weight.

Hear it in a sentence

对不起，我没听见。

Duìbuqǐ, wǒ méi tīngjiàn.

Sorry, I didn't hear you.

Listen: 对不起，我没听见。

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对不起，我没听见。 pairs the apology with its explanation, and the second clause is worth listening to: méi rises, tīng is high and flat, jiàn falls. So after the low qǐ, the sentence climbs and then drops again. The wǒ before méi stays low, since méi is a second tone and triggers nothing.

Where English speakers slip

Beginners commonly restore a full fourth tone to the middle syllable, producing duì bù qǐ with three heavy beats, which sounds stilted and over-enunciated. The other trap is the first syllable: English speakers hear "doo-ee" and give it two beats. It is one beat — the lips round and the tongue moves through to "ay" without stopping in between.