LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "买" in Chinese?
Like "my" but sunk to the bottom of your voice. Simple to articulate; the whole difficulty is committing to the low pitch.
mǎi
This word has a famous partner: 卖 mài, "to sell", differs only by having a falling tone. Buying and selling are separated purely by pitch direction, which makes this one of the most-cited examples of why tones matter. Before another third tone, 买 rises; before anything else it dips.
Listen: 买
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我要买面包。
Wǒ yào mǎi miànbāo.
I need to buy bread.
Listen: 我要买面包。
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我要买面包。 keeps both third tones intact. Wǒ is followed by the falling yào, so it does not change; mǎi is followed by the falling miàn, so it does not change either. Two full dips in one sentence is relatively unusual, and the run wǒ yào mǎi gives you low, high-to-low, low — a genuine zigzag that beginners tend to smooth out.
Where English speakers slip
Letting the pitch fall instead of dip turns "buy" into "sell" — a mistake with obvious real-world potential. A third tone starts low and stays low; a fourth starts high and drops. Learners also tighten the diphthong toward the English "my", where Mandarin wants a wider opening on the "ah" before the glide closes.