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Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "护照" in Chinese?
hoo-JAO, both syllables dropping hard. A scraped h onto a rounded vowel, then an unaspirated retroflex.
hùzhào
Two descents, one after the other, with the first compressed and the second fuller. No rule intervenes. The word is also a lip drill: tightly rounded for hù, then wide open for the start of zhào before rounding again at the end of the glide — the mouth moves a long way in two beats.
Listen: 护照
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
别忘了带护照。
Bié wàngle dài hùzhào.
Don't forget to bring your passport.
Listen: 别忘了带护照。
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别忘了带护照。 opens with bié climbing, then wàng plunges, le fades, dài plunges, and hù and zhào plunge twice more. Four consecutive descents after the initial rise — the longest falling run in this batch, and the place where English rhythm most wants to merge everything into one slide.
Where English speakers slip
That h disappears before the rounded vowel for many learners, leaving "oo". Put friction at the back of the mouth. The retroflex in zhào flattens into an English j. And the four-fall run in the example sentence gets levelled, which makes an urgent reminder sound like a resigned observation.