LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "工作" in Chinese?
goong-DZWOR: a high level first syllable with an unaspirated g, then a hard-falling second with a "ds" onset.
gōngzuò
Level into falling, with no sandhi. The pitch interval is large — gōng sits at the ceiling and zuò finishes at the floor — which makes this a useful calibration word. If the drop feels small, the first syllable was probably not high enough to begin with.
Listen: 工作
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我有一份新工作。
Wǒ yǒu yí fèn xīn gōngzuò.
I have a new job.
Listen: 我有一份新工作。
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我有一份新工作。 opens with wǒ and yǒu adjacent, both dipping, so wǒ rises. Then yí is the converted 一 before the falling fèn, xīn holds level, gōng holds level too, and zuò plunges. Two conversions in the first half and a two-syllable plateau in the second.
Where English speakers slip
Add breath to the g and you get kōng, a real word meaning empty, so the error is meaningful rather than merely accented. Keep the release silent. The z is read as an English z by most learners, losing the stop closure, and the -uo final flattens to "oh". And the wǒ yǒu conversion at the start remains one of the most-missed in the language.