LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "钱包" in Chinese?
chyen-BAO: a rising first syllable with a strong puff of air, then a high level second with none.
qiánbāo
A climb settling onto a plateau, with no sandhi. The aspiration contrast is the technical content: the q has a strong puff and the b has none, and English speakers tend to give initial consonants roughly equal breath. Feel the air on your palm for the first syllable and not the second.
Listen: 钱包
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我的钱包不见了。
Wǒ de qiánbāo bú jiàn le.
My wallet is gone.
Listen: 我的钱包不见了。
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我的钱包不见了。 shows the 不 rule: jiàn is a falling tone, so the negator converts to bú. Wǒ keeps its dip because de is toneless. The sentence therefore runs dip, nothing, rise, level, rise, fall, nothing — with two rises that need separate downward resets.
Where English speakers slip
Swallowing the breath on the q gives jián, and the -ian final opens out to "chyahn" when it should be a tight "eh". Aspirating the b gives pāo. And in the example sentence, learners who have not internalised the 不 rule produce bù jiàn, which is wrong because jiàn falls.