LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "面包" in Chinese?
myen-BAO: a hard-falling first syllable with a tight "eh", then a high level second with no puff of air.
miànbāo
Fall then plateau, with no rule involved. The interval is the notable feature: miàn drops to the floor and bāo leaps straight to the ceiling, so the word spans nearly your whole pitch range across two syllables. Compressing that leap is the usual way it goes flat.
Listen: 面包
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我每天买新鲜的面包。
Wǒ měi tiān mǎi xīnxiān de miànbāo.
I buy fresh bread every day.
Listen: 我每天买新鲜的面包。
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我每天买新鲜的面包。 opens with wǒ and měi adjacent, both dipping, so wǒ rises. Then tiān holds level, mǎi dips, xīn and xiān hold level, de fades, miàn plunges and bāo returns to level. Notice mǎi keeps its full dip because xīn is level, not dipping.
Where English speakers slip
The -ian final opens out to "myahn" for most learners when it should be a tight "eh". Aspirating the b gives pāo. And the pitch leap between the two syllables is routinely flattened, because English gives a compound's second element less prominence — here it needs to be at full height.