LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "女儿" in Chinese?
nü-ARR: a low sagging first syllable with the rounded front ü, then a rising r-coloured second. The apostrophe marks the syllable break.
nǚ'ér
The pitch starts at the floor and works upward, with no conversion since ér rises. The word is a lip-position drill more than a tonal one: the lips are pursed tightly for ü and then must open completely for the r-coloured vowel, and any leftover rounding turns the second syllable into an English "er".
Listen: 女儿
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
他的女儿很可爱。
Tā de nǚ'ér hěn kě'ài.
His daughter is very cute.
Listen: 他的女儿很可爱。
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他的女儿很可爱。 ends with hěn and kě adjacent, both dipping tones, so hěn rises: hén kě'ài. Nǚ itself keeps its full dip because ér climbs. So the sentence contains two dipping tones that behave differently — one unchanged, one triggering a conversion in its neighbour — which is a compact illustration of how local the rule is.
Where English speakers slip
Replacing ü with a plain "oo" gives "noo", which is a different vowel entirely. Say "nee", freeze the tongue, then round the lips. The second syllable draws the opposite error: pronounced as a full English "air" with a level pitch, it loses the rise. And the hěn kě'ài conversion at the end is easy to miss because it sits inside a compliment you are trying to deliver smoothly.