Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "睡觉" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 睡觉 in Chinese?

睡觉 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʂweɪ˥˩.tɕjɑʊ˥˩/. It means “to sleep.” shway-JYAO, both syllables dropping hard. Retroflex sh into a three-part glide, then an unaspirated palatal j into another glide.

shway-JYAO, both syllables dropping hard. Retroflex sh into a three-part glide, then an unaspirated palatal j into another glide.

睡觉 /ʂweɪ˥˩.tɕjɑʊ˥˩/

shuìjiào

Two consecutive fourth tones with no sandhi. As always with a falling-falling pair, the first is shortened and does not descend as far, so the word is lopsided: a compressed drop followed by a fuller one. Producing two identical plunges is what gives beginners that hammered, robotic rhythm.

Listen: 睡觉

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Sound it out

shuì Tongue curled back for the hiss, then a rounded w-glide through a short "eh" to a close at "ee" — three vowel positions after a retroflex consonant, with the pitch plunging throughout.

jiào Blade of the tongue against the hard palate, released with no breath, into a glide from "ee" through open "ah" to a rounded finish. Another steep fall, so the word ends as decisively as it began.

Hear it in a sentence

我要早点睡觉。

Wǒ yào zǎodiǎn shuìjiào.

I'm going to sleep early.

Listen: 我要早点睡觉。

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

我要早点睡觉。 contains a sandhi in the middle: zǎo and diǎn are both third tones and adjacent, so zǎo rises to záo diǎn. Wǒ at the start keeps its dip because yào is falling. Then the two falls of shuìjiào close the sentence. So the melody rises in the middle and then drops twice at the end.

Where English speakers slip

Both syllables invite vowel-splitting: "shoo-ay" and "jee-ow" turn a two-beat word into four. Keep each to one beat with a continuously moving mouth. The initials are the other half — an English "sh" for the retroflex and an aspirated "ch" for the j are both common substitutions, and together they make the word close to unrecognisable.