Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "难过" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 难过 in Chinese?

难过 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /nan˧˥.kwo˥˩/. It means “sad.” nahn-GWOR, a rising first syllable then a hard-falling second. Open vowel and front n, then a rounded glide.

nahn-GWOR, a rising first syllable then a hard-falling second. Open vowel and front n, then a rounded glide.

难过 /nan˧˥.kwo˥˩/

nánguò

Rising into falling, with no sandhi. The shape is a clean inverted V — up then down — which makes this a useful word for practising the two most contrastive tones back to back. Note that the same first syllable with a falling tone, nàn, means disaster, so the rise is genuinely load-bearing.

Listen: 难过

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Sound it out

nán Alveolar n onto a broad open "ah", closed with the tongue tip back at the ridge. The tongue starts and ends in the same place, and the pitch climbs from mid to high in between.

guò Unaspirated g at the soft palate, then a rounded glide from "oo" out toward "aw". The pitch drops steeply, so the word ends much lower than it began.

Hear it in a sentence

你为什么难过？

Nǐ wèishénme nánguò?

Why are you sad?

Listen: 你为什么难过？

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你为什么难过？ has nǐ before wèi, a fourth tone, so nǐ keeps its dip. Then shén rises, me goes toneless, nán rises again, and guò falls. Two rises separated by a toneless valley, then the drop at the end. The question has no interrogative rise — 为什么 carries the question by itself and the melody simply follows the tones.

Where English speakers slip

The rise on nán is often too shallow, leaving it level, which drifts toward nān. Start lower so there is room to climb. On the second syllable, learners flatten -uo to "oh" and aspirate the g into kuò. And English speakers instinctively soften the pitch when talking about sadness, which turns the sharp fall on guò into a gentle glide — the tone should stay decisive regardless of the meaning.