LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "动物" in Chinese?
doong-WOO, both syllables dropping hard. The second is a bare rounded vowel with no consonant at all.
dòngwù
Both halves do the same thing — falling tones with the first compressed, as always. Both syllables are rounded throughout, so the lips never relax across the whole word — which is unusual and makes it feel oddly effortful until the shape becomes familiar.
Listen: 动物
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
狗是我最喜欢的动物。
Gǒu shì wǒ zuì xǐhuan de dòngwù.
The dog is my favorite animal.
Listen: 狗是我最喜欢的动物。
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狗是我最喜欢的动物。 keeps gǒu at a full dip because shì falls, and wǒ at a full dip because zuì falls. Then xǐ dips too, huan fades, de fades, and dòngwù delivers two drops. Three unchanged dipping tones in one sentence, which learners often assume must have interacted somewhere.
Where English speakers slip
Breath on the d gives gives tòng. The -ong vowel opens out to an English "ong" when the lips should stay pursed. On the second syllable, learners often insert a real w consonant rather than simply beginning with rounded lips. And the two falls get evened out into identical thumps instead of a short drop and a fuller one.