Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "猫" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 猫 in Chinese?

猫 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /mɑʊ˥/. It means “cat.” mao, held high and flat. Ordinary m, then a long glide from open "ah" toward a rounded finish.

mao, held high and flat. Ordinary m, then a long glide from open "ah" toward a rounded finish.

猫 /mɑʊ˥/

māo

Nothing moves this pitch. Its neighbours in the syllable space are crowded — máo, mǎo and mào all exist as common words — so the level tone is genuinely load-bearing here rather than decorative. A sagging first tone will be heard as something else.

Listen: 猫

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Sound it out

m- Lips closed, air through the nose — no adjustment needed from English.

-ao Start wide on "ah" with the jaw genuinely down, closing toward "oo". A long final, which gives the level tone plenty of body to sit on.

māo (level) Pinned at the top and held throughout. The mouth travels the whole length of the glide while the pitch stays motionless, which is the small technical trick.

Hear it in a sentence

猫睡了一整天。

Māo shuìle yì zhěng tiān.

The cat slept all day.

Listen: 猫睡了一整天。

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猫睡了一整天。 shows the falling branch of the 一 rule: zhěng is a dipping tone, so 一 becomes yì. Before that, māo holds level and shuì plunges; after, tiān holds level again. Two level plateaus bracketing a run of falls and a dip, with the converted yì sitting in the middle.

Where English speakers slip

The level tone taper is the main issue: English speakers let a word-final vowel drift downward, which turns māo into something closer to mào. Hold the pitch and cut it. The glide also gets shortened toward "mao" without the open middle, which robs the syllable of its length and makes the tone harder to place.