LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "骄傲" in Chinese?
jyao-AO: a high level first syllable with an unaspirated j, then a hard-falling second that is a bare vowel. The apostrophe marks the syllable break.
jiāo'ào
A flat top, then a plunge, with no sandhi. The two syllables share the same final, so the tone is the only thing distinguishing them — a level -ao followed by a falling -ao. That makes the word a compact drill for holding one tone steady and then dropping the next.
Listen: 骄傲
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我为你骄傲。
Wǒ wèi nǐ jiāo'ào.
I'm proud of you.
Listen: 我为你骄傲。
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我为你骄傲。 keeps wǒ at a full dip because wèi falls, then wèi plunges, nǐ dips, jiāo holds level, ào plunges. Two unchanged dipping tones and two falls, with the level jiāo providing the only sustained pitch. The leap from the low nǐ up to jiāo is the sentence's largest interval.
Where English speakers slip
Let the j release with breath and it becomes gives qiāo. Keep the breath in. On the second syllable, English speakers insert a glottal stop or an "h" at the front because we are uncomfortable beginning a syllable with a bare vowel — the transition should be smooth. And the two identical finals tend to get the same tone, which erases the word's shape.