Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "忙" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 忙 in Chinese?

忙 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mɑŋ˧˥/. It means “busy.” mahng, climbing from mid to high. Same open vowel as 慢 but with a back nasal ending and an upward pitch.

mahng, climbing from mid to high. Same open vowel as 慢 but with a back nasal ending and an upward pitch.

忙 /mɑŋ˧˥/

máng

The rise holds in every environment. The pairing to keep in mind is with 慢 màn: same initial, same vowel, but a front nasal and a falling tone versus a back nasal and a rising one. Two very common words separated by two features at once, which at least makes them easier to keep apart than a single-feature pair.

Listen: 忙

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Sound it out

m- An ordinary m with the lips closed and the air routed through the nose.

-ang The broad "ah" of "father" sealed at the back of the mouth by ng. The tongue tip should be resting behind the lower teeth for the whole syllable, doing nothing at all.

máng (rising) The tone lifts, finishing at the top of your range. The nasal ending is helpful here — it gives the climb somewhere to land.

Hear it in a sentence

我今天很忙。

Wǒ jīntiān hěn máng.

I'm very busy today.

Listen: 我今天很忙。

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我今天很忙。 keeps wǒ at a full dip before the level jīn, and hěn at a full dip before the rising máng — neither third tone changes. So the sentence dips, plateaus, dips again, and climbs out at the end. That final rise is what gives the statement its slightly complaining lift, and flattening it makes the sentence sound flat in every sense.

Where English speakers slip

The nasal is the first thing to check: a front n gives mán, a different word, and English speakers merge the two nasals without noticing. The rise is the second: because "busy" feels like a word to say wearily, learners let the pitch sag, which pushes it toward the dipping mǎng or the falling màn. Keep the climb clear even when the meaning is tiring.