Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "到" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 到 in Chinese?

到 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɑʊ˥˩/. It means “to arrive / to reach.” dao, dropping hard from high to low. Unaspirated d and a long glide from "ah" toward "oo".

dao, dropping hard from high to low. Unaspirated d and a long glide from "ah" toward "oo".

到 /tɑʊ˥˩/

dào

Fixed in itself, and a frequent cause of change nearby: 不到 becomes bú dào when the negator carries its own tone, though in potential complements like zhǎo bu dào the negator is toneless instead. Both patterns are common, so the same two characters can behave differently depending on the construction.

Listen: 到

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Sound it out

d- Tongue tip on the ridge, released with the breath held in. No puff, no buzz.

-ao Open on "ah" and closing toward a rounded finish. It is a long final, which is why the falling tone here sounds smooth rather than abrupt.

dào (falling) A complete descent from the top of the range to the bottom, spread across the whole glide. One of the most satisfying fourth tones to produce because there is so much room.

Hear it in a sentence

我到家了。

Wǒ dào jiā le.

I'm home.

Listen: 我到家了。

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我到家了。 has a clean three-step shape: wǒ dips low, dào drops from high, jiā jumps back to the top and holds, and le falls off the end toneless. The pitch therefore goes down, down, up, and then simply stops. Wǒ keeps its full dip because dào is falling rather than dipping.

Where English speakers slip

The vowel gets split into "dah-oh" with two beats, which doubles the length and blurs the tone. It is one beat with a moving mouth. Aspiration is the other risk: an audible puff makes it tào, a different word. And because 到 often appears at the end of a phrase where English would drop the pitch gently, learners produce a soft fall instead of a decisive one.