LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "大" in Chinese?
dah, dropping hard. Unaspirated d and a wide open vowel — a short syllable that must fall decisively.
dà
This adjective appears in so many descriptive phrases that it triggers changes constantly: 不大 becomes bú dà, and 一 in front becomes yí. Note also 大 in the compound 大夫 dàifu, where the character is read differently — a reminder that character-to-sound mapping is not always one to one.
Listen: 大
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
这个房间很大。
Zhège fángjiān hěn dà.
This room is very big.
Listen: 这个房间很大。
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这个房间很大。 puts hěn immediately before dà, and because dà is falling rather than dipping, hěn keeps its full third tone. So the sentence ends with a dip followed by a sharp fall — down to the floor and then a leap back to the top before plunging. That leap is the most common casualty when learners rush the ending.
Where English speakers slip
Aspirating gives tà, a different word. Keep the release silent. On the tone side, English speakers say adjectives with a falling-but-gentle intonation, which produces a mid-to-low glide rather than a genuine high-to-low plunge. Start at the top. And keep the vowel wide — the tight a of "cat" makes the syllable sound clipped and small, which is ironic given the meaning.