Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "去" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 去 in Chinese?

去 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɕʰy˥˩/. It means “to go.” chü, dropping hard — an aspirated palatal initial plus the rounded front vowel. The u after q is always ü, never plain "oo".

chü, dropping hard — an aspirated palatal initial plus the rounded front vowel. The u after q is always ü, never plain "oo".

去 /tɕʰy˥˩/

qù

Its own drop is fixed, but it sets off changes constantly because it turns up in so many verb phrases. 不去 becomes bú qù; 一 before it becomes yí. In wǒ qù, the pronoun keeps its full dip since qù falls rather than dips.

Listen: 去

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

q- The blade of the tongue spreads against the hard palate, lips smiling, and the release carries a strong puff of air. Aspiration is what distinguishes it from j.

-u (= ü) A spelling convention worth internalising: after j, q, x and y the letter u always represents ü. Set your tongue for "ee", then round your lips tightly without moving the tongue back.

qù (falling) A steep drop from high to low on a short, tight vowel. There is very little room, so the fall must be fast and unambiguous.

Hear it in a sentence

我们去公园吧。

Wǒmen qù gōngyuán ba.

Let's go to the park.

Listen: 我们去公园吧。

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

我们去公园吧。 puts qù between the toneless men and the high gōng, so it stands out as the one sharp drop in the first half. The sentence then ends with the toneless ba trailing off after yuán, which rises. So the suggestion finishes high and light rather than with any downward finality — the particle does not resolve the pitch.

Where English speakers slip

The overwhelming error is "choo", with a plain rounded "oo" instead of ü. That vowel does not exist in this syllable, and using it produces something closer to chū. The remedy is mechanical: say "chee", freeze the tongue, then purse the lips. Under-aspirating is the secondary problem, since a soft release makes qù sound like jù.