Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "黑色" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 黑色 in Chinese?

黑色 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /xeɪ˥.sɤ˥˩/. It means “black.” hay-SUH, with the first syllable held high and flat and the second dropping off it. The h is scraped at the back of the mouth rather than breathed.

hay-SUH, with the first syllable held high and flat and the second dropping off it. The h is scraped at the back of the mouth rather than breathed.

黑色 /xeɪ˥.sɤ˥˩/

hēisè

Level then plunging, and neither half is subject to any rule. The distinctive feature of this particular colour word is the size of the pitch interval: hēi is at the ceiling and sè finishes at the floor, so the compound has the widest range of any of the -sè words. Use it as a calibration exercise for your first and fourth tones.

Listen: 黑色

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Sound it out

hēi Velar friction h, then the diphthong of "hay" — starting at "eh" and closing toward "ee". The pitch stays pinned at the top of your range for the whole syllable, with no drift.

sè Coming off that high plateau, the fourth tone here has the longest drop of any colour word in the set: from the top of your range to the bottom in one syllable. The s stays forward at the teeth while the vowel pulls back.

Hear it in a sentence

他的头发是黑色的。

Tā de tóufa shì hēisè de.

He has black hair.

Listen: 他的头发是黑色的。

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他的头发是黑色的。 places two toneless particles in the sentence — the de after tā and the de at the end — with tóufa also ending in a toneless syllable. So there are three weightless beats, and hēisè is the one place where the pitch really moves. If you give every syllable equal stress the sentence loses all shape.

Where English speakers slip

The first-tone plateau is where this goes wrong: English speakers hear "hay" and give it the falling-away quality that English word-final vowels have, which turns a first tone into something closer to a fourth. Hold the pitch and cut it off cleanly. The h is the other issue — a soft English "h" is too breathy and open; add friction by raising the back of the tongue.