Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "冷" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 冷 in Chinese?

冷 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /lɤŋ˨˩˦/. It means “cold.” lung, low and sagging. A bright forward l, a back unrounded vowel, and the nasal of "song".

lung, low and sagging. A bright forward l, a back unrounded vowel, and the nasal of "song".

冷 /lɤŋ˨˩˦/

lěng

As with every dipping tone, the neighbour decides. Before a first, second or fourth tone it keeps the full low contour; before another dipping syllable it converts to a rise. Its most common companion, hěn, is itself a third tone, which is why this particular word is caught up in sandhi so often.

Listen: 冷

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Sound it out

l- With the tip against the ridge with air over the sides. Keep it light — a hollow English l would darken the already-retracted vowel further.

-eng A mid back unrounded vowel closed at the back of the mouth. The tongue tip must come off the ridge and stay down while the back of the tongue makes the closure.

lěng (dip) The pitch settles at the bottom and rests. The nasal ending stretches the syllable, which gives the low stretch time to be heard.

Hear it in a sentence

水很冷。

Shuǐ hěn lěng.

The water is cold.

Listen: 水很冷。

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水很冷。 is three third tones in a row — shuǐ, hěn and lěng — and Mandarin raises all but the last, so it is spoken shuí hén lěng. Two rises and one dip, where the writing shows three dips. It is one of the cleanest possible demonstrations of the rule, and one of the sentences beginners most reliably get wrong.

Where English speakers slip

The nasal drifts forward to lěn, which is not a Mandarin syllable but sounds acceptable to an English ear. Let the back of the tongue close it. The bigger issue is the sentence above: producing three laboured dips is slow and unmistakably foreign. If a Mandarin sentence feels heavy in the mouth, an unapplied sandhi is nearly always the reason.