Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "等" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 等 in Chinese?

等 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɤŋ˨˩˦/. It means “to wait.” dung, low and sagging. An unaspirated d, a back unrounded vowel, and the nasal of "song" to close it.

dung, low and sagging. An unaspirated d, a back unrounded vowel, and the nasal of "song" to close it.

等 /tɤŋ˨˩˦/

děng

This verb appears in front of pronouns constantly — děng wǒ, děng nǐ — which are also third tones. In every one of those cases 等 converts to a rising second tone and only the pronoun keeps the dip. So the citation form of this verb is one you will rarely actually produce in a sentence.

Listen: 等

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Sound it out

d- Tongue tip taps the ridge and releases with the breath held in — neither the buzzing d of English nor the breathy t.

-eng A mid back unrounded vowel closed at the back of the mouth. The whole point is that the tongue tip does nothing: it stays down while the back of the tongue makes the closure.

děng (dip) Pitch descends to the bottom and rests there. The nasal ending stretches the syllable, which suits a third tone since it needs time to sink.

Hear it in a sentence

我在这里等你。

Wǒ zài zhèlǐ děng nǐ.

I'll wait for you here.

Listen: 我在这里等你。

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我在这里等你。 ends with three consecutive third tones: lǐ, děng and nǐ. Mandarin resolves a run like this by raising all but the last, so the ending is spoken lí déng nǐ — two rises and one dip. Wǒ at the start keeps its dip because zài is falling. Nearly half this sentence is written with third tones and only one of them is pronounced as one.

Where English speakers slip

The nasal ending is a persistent problem: děn with a front n is not the word, and English ears do not police the difference. The bigger issue is the three-in-a-row sequence above, where beginners produce three laboured dips instead of two rises and a dip. If a sentence feels heavy and slow in the mouth, an unapplied sandhi is usually the reason.