Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "读" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 读 in Chinese?

读 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tu˧˥/. It means “to read.” doo, rising from mid to high. Unaspirated d and a tightly rounded "oo", with the pitch climbing across it.

doo, rising from mid to high. Unaspirated d and a tightly rounded "oo", with the pitch climbing across it.

读 /tu˧˥/

dú

The rise is fixed. Its role in sandhi is passive: because it is rising, any third tone in front of it keeps a full dip. In the very common phrase dú shū, the following syllable is a first tone, so nothing changes there either — the compound is tonally quiet.

Listen: 读

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Sound it out

d- Tongue tip on the ridge, released with no puff of air. Since the vowel is rounded, the lips are already pursed before the consonant is released.

-ú A tight, high back "oo" with the lips pushed forward into a small circle. More compressed than the English vowel in "do", and with no diphthong drift at the end.

dú (rising) The voice starts mid and arrives high on a short, tight vowel. There is little room, so the rise must be quick and unmistakable or it reads as level.

Hear it in a sentence

我喜欢读书。

Wǒ xǐhuan dú shū.

I like to read.

Listen: 我喜欢读书。

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我喜欢读书。 opens with the wǒ xǐ sandhi, since both are third tones and adjacent, so wǒ rises. Then huan goes toneless, dú climbs, and shū holds high. The sentence therefore has two rises with a toneless valley between them and finishes on a level plateau — the pitch never really comes down after the start.

Where English speakers slip

Aspirating the d gives tú, a different word, and English speakers aspirate initial stops before a stressed vowel almost automatically. The rounding is the other issue: a slack English "oo" makes the vowel too loose. Push the lips forward. And on a short rounded vowel the rise is easy to skip, so exaggerate the climb until it feels excessive.