LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "非常" in Chinese?
fay-CHAHNG: a high level first syllable, then a rising second with the tongue curled back and a strong puff of air.
fēicháng
Level then rising, with no sandhi. As with 开门, the second tone here is compressed because the first syllable has already taken the pitch near the ceiling — native speakers dip slightly at the start of cháng to give the rise somewhere to come from. Copying that small dip is what makes the word sound right.
Listen: 非常
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我非常爱你。
Wǒ fēicháng ài nǐ.
I love you so much.
Listen: 我非常爱你。
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我非常爱你。 keeps wǒ at a full dip before the level fēi, then climbs on cháng, plunges on ài, and dips on nǐ. Four different tones in five syllables, and the largest movement is from the top of cháng straight down through ài. That drop is what carries the emphasis, so under-producing it drains the sentence of its force.
Where English speakers slip
Too little breath on the ch gives zhǎng, and the retroflex flattens into an English ch for most learners — both errors at once make the second syllable unrecognisable. The compressed rise is the other trap: because there seems to be no room to climb after a first tone, beginners keep cháng level, which turns the intensifier into something quite different.