Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "七" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 七 in Chinese?

七 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tɕʰi˥/. It means “seven.” chee with an audible puff of air, held high and flat. The initial is made further forward than any English ch, with the lips spread wide.

chee with an audible puff of air, held high and flat. The initial is made further forward than any English ch, with the lips spread wide.

七 /tɕʰi˥/

qī

Held high, and no rule in the language will move it. The syllable's real role in the tone system is as a target: because it is high and level, 一 in front of it converts to a fourth tone, so a phrase like yī qī is never actually spoken that way.

Listen: 七

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Sound it out

q- Front of the tongue pressed broadly against the hard palate, lips smiling, then released with breath. It is the aspirated counterpart of j, and the puff of air is the only thing separating the two.

-ī A pure, tense "ee" — a genuine vowel this time, unlike the decoy i after zh, ch, sh, z, c and s.

qī (level) Held at the top of your pitch range without moving. Short syllables like this one make a level tone hard: the instinct is to let it drop as the breath runs out.

Hear it in a sentence

一个星期有七天。

Yí ge xīngqī yǒu qī tiān.

A week has seven days.

Listen: 一个星期有七天。

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一个星期有七天。 contains two separate 一-related points even though only one 一 appears. The number one at the start becomes yí because 个 is underlyingly fourth tone. Then xīngqī gives you two high level syllables in a row, which flows straight into yǒu, a dip, and back up to qī, high again. Hearing where those level plateaus start and stop is the exercise here.

Where English speakers slip

The commonest fault is under-aspirating, so that qī comes out as jī — the sound in 鸡 and 机, which will genuinely confuse a listener. Hold a hand in front of your mouth; you should feel the air. Learners also frequently pronounce the initial like the English ch of "church", with rounded lips and the tongue too far back; spread the lips instead.