Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "叫" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 叫 in Chinese?

叫 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɕjɑʊ˥˩/. It means “to be called / to call.” jyao, one beat, dropping hard from high to low. The j is unaspirated and made forward against the hard palate.

jyao, one beat, dropping hard from high to low. The j is unaspirated and made forward against the hard palate.

叫 /tɕjɑʊ˥˩/

jiào

It never changes itself, though it reliably changes others: 不 before it becomes bú, and 一 becomes yí. In the very common introduction pattern wǒ jiào, the preceding wǒ keeps its full third-tone dip because jiào is falling rather than dipping.

Listen: 叫

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Sound it out

j- The blade of the tongue spreads against the hard palate and releases with no puff of air. Similar to the j of "jeep" but flatter, further forward, and unvoiced.

-iao Three positions in a single beat: "ee", then a wide "ah", then closing toward "oo". The middle "ah" is the longest part and should not be skipped over.

jiào (falling) From the top of the range to the bottom across that whole glide. Because the vowel is long, the fall here is one of the more gradual fourth tones — it has room to descend rather than being clipped.

Hear it in a sentence

她叫小美。

Tā jiào Xiǎoměi.

Her name is Xiaomei.

Listen: 她叫小美。

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她叫小美。 sets a high level tā against the falling jiào and then Xiǎoměi, which is two third tones in contact — so xiǎo rises and měi keeps the dip. The name therefore does not sound the way it is written, and this is extremely common with Chinese given names built from third-tone characters.

Where English speakers slip

Learners routinely split the vowel into two syllables, "jee-ow", which doubles the length and destroys the tone contour. It is one beat. Aspiration is the other issue: adding breath makes it qiào, a different word. And in the introduction formula, English speakers tend to stress the name and throw away the verb, whereas Mandarin gives jiào a full, clearly falling tone of its own.