LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "今天" in Chinese?
jin-TYEN, both syllables high and flat. An unaspirated j then a strongly aspirated t — the aspiration contrast is the word's main technical demand.
jīntiān
Two level tones in a row, so the whole word sits at the top of your range with no movement at all. That makes it an excellent calibration exercise — if the second syllable drifts lower, your first tone is sagging. It is also a stable neighbour, leaving any dipping tone before it fully intact.
Listen: 今天
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
今天下雨。
Jīntiān xià yǔ.
It's raining today.
Listen: 今天下雨。
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今天下雨。 opens with that double-high plateau and then drops hard on xià before yǔ dips at the end. So the sentence has a long flat top and then falls away in two stages, first to a plunge and then to the floor. That shape — sustained high, then descent — is extremely characteristic of Mandarin weather statements.
Where English speakers slip
The aspiration contrast is the specific thing to get right: j has no breath, t has a lot, and producing them the same way makes the word sound blurred. Beyond that, the -ian final opens out to "tyahn" for most learners, and the double first tone tends to sag on the second syllable because English intonation always drifts downward across a phrase.