Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "谁" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 谁 in Chinese?

谁 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʂeɪ˧˥/. It means “who.” shay, rising from mid to high, with the tongue curled back. There is a second accepted pronunciation, shuí, which you will also hear.

shay, rising from mid to high, with the tongue curled back. There is a second accepted pronunciation, shuí, which you will also hear.

谁 /ʂeɪ˧˥/

shéi

Rising and stable. The genuinely useful fact is that this character has two standard readings — shéi and shuí — with the same meaning and the same tone. Both are correct; shéi is more colloquial and shuí more formal or northern. It is one of the few places where Mandarin tolerates open variation.

Listen: 谁

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Sound it out

sh- Retroflex: the tongue tip curls up and back toward the front of the hard palate, hollowing the sound in a way English "sh" never does.

-ei A tight diphthong from a mid "eh" to a close "ee". Shorter and less drawled than the vowel in English "shay".

shéi (rising) The voice starts mid and arrives high. Because the syllable is short, the climb has to be brisk and unmistakable or it flattens into a level tone.

Hear it in a sentence

那个人是谁？

Nàge rén shì shéi?

Who is that person?

Listen: 那个人是谁？

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那个人是谁？ ends on shéi, so the rise completes with nothing after it. Before that, nà falls, ge goes toneless, rén climbs, and shì falls. The question therefore alternates fall and rise throughout and finishes by climbing — but again, that is the word's own tone, not an interrogative melody.

Where English speakers slip

English "sh" with a flat tongue is the standard substitution, which pushes the syllable toward the thin x sound. Curl the tip back. The rise is the other issue: because question words in English often carry falling intonation, learners let the pitch drop, and a falling shèi is not a word — the result simply sounds unclear rather than wrong, which makes it hard to self-correct.