Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "哪里" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 哪里 in Chinese?

哪里 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /na˨˩˦.li˨˩˦/. It means “where.” nah-LEE — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you actually say ná lǐ.

nah-LEE — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you actually say ná lǐ.

哪里 /na˨˩˦.li˨˩˦/

nǎlǐ

A textbook third-tone conversion. Both syllables carry the dipping hook in isolation and Mandarin refuses to pronounce two in a row, so the first becomes a rising second tone: nǎlǐ is spoken ná lǐ. Contrast 那里 nàlǐ, "there", where the first syllable falls and no conversion occurs — the two words differ in two ways at once.

Listen: 哪里

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Sound it out

nǎ Alveolar n onto a broad open "ah" with the jaw down. Written with a dipping hook, but spoken as a rise in this word because of what follows.

lǐ A bright forward l onto a tense spread "ee", and this is the syllable that keeps the low contour. Being second in the pair, it stays as written.

Hear it in a sentence

你住在哪里？

Nǐ zhù zài nǎlǐ?

Where do you live?

Listen: 你住在哪里？

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你住在哪里？ keeps nǐ at a full dip because zhù falls, then zhù and zài give two consecutive drops before the conversion at the end. So the question runs dip, fall, fall, rise, dip. There is no interrogative rise in the final position — the question word does that job, and lǐ simply sinks.

Where English speakers slip

Producing two laboured dips is the standard failure and it makes the question sound slow and effortful. Say ná lǐ as a fixed unit. The second error is confusing this with 那里: if you dip the first syllable of "there" or fall on the first syllable of "where", you have swapped the words. And a dark English l darkens the following "ee", pulling lǐ toward lǚ.