Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "水果" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 水果 in Chinese?

水果 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʂweɪ˨˩˦.kwo˨˩˦/. It means “fruit.” shway-GWOR — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you say shuí guǒ.

shway-GWOR — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you say shuí guǒ.

水果 /ʂweɪ˨˩˦.kwo˨˩˦/

shuǐguǒ

A textbook conversion: two dipping tones in contact, so the first becomes a rising second tone. What makes this word demanding is that both syllables also contain rounded glides, so the mouth is busy while the pitch is doing something the spelling does not show. Learn shuí guǒ as one rhythmic unit.

Listen: 水果

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Sound it out

shuǐ The sh is made with the tip curled back, then a three-part glide: rounded "oo", short "eh", close at "ee". Written with a dipping hook but spoken as a rise in this word.

guǒ Unaspirated g at the soft palate, then a glide from rounded "oo" out toward "aw". This syllable keeps the low contour, being second in the pair.

Hear it in a sentence

我每天吃水果。

Wǒ měi tiān chī shuǐguǒ.

I eat fruit every day.

Listen: 我每天吃水果。

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

我每天吃水果。 contains two separate conversions. Wǒ and měi are adjacent dipping tones, so wǒ rises. Then shuǐ and guǒ are also adjacent dipping tones, so shuǐ rises too. Four dipping hooks in the sentence and only two of them are spoken as dips.

Where English speakers slip

Producing two laboured dips is the standard failure, and it makes the word sound spelled out. The segments compound the problem: the retroflex flattens into an English "sh", the middle "eh" of shuǐ disappears leaving "shwee", and the -uo in guǒ reduces to "oh". Fix the tones first, then the vowels.