LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "地铁" in Chinese?
dee-TYEH: a hard-falling first syllable with no puff of air, then a low sagging second with a strong puff. The aspiration contrast is the point.
dìtiě
Fall then dip, with no conversion — the rule needs two dipping tones in contact and dì falls. The word is really an aspiration drill in disguise: two alveolar stops in a row, one silent on release and one with a strong puff, and confusing them turns the syllables into each other.
Listen: 地铁
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我每天坐地铁上班。
Wǒ měi tiān zuò dìtiě shàngbān.
I take the subway to work every day.
Listen: 我每天坐地铁上班。
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
我每天坐地铁上班。 opens with wǒ and měi adjacent, both dipping, so wǒ rises. Then tiān holds level, zuò plunges, dì plunges again, tiě dips, and shàngbān gives a fall and a level. Two consecutive falls in the middle need separate resets rather than merging into one slide.
Where English speakers slip
The breath contrast collapses for most learners, so both syllables come out the same — either both breathy or both silent. Feel the air on your palm for tiě and not for dì. The vowel in tiě is the other issue: reduced to "tuh" it loses the "ee" glide and the open "eh" that carries the tone.