Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "试" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 试 in Chinese?

试 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʂʐ̩˥˩/. It means “to try.” shrr, dropping hard. A retroflex hiss that simply starts buzzing — there is no vowel in this syllable at all.

shrr, dropping hard. A retroflex hiss that simply starts buzzing — there is no vowel in this syllable at all.

试 /ʂʐ̩˥˩/

shì

Segments and tone are identical to 是, the verb "to be" — same sounds, same tone, different characters. Context alone separates them. When 试 is reduplicated as shì yi shì, the linking 一 in the middle loses its tone entirely, which is a specific and slightly unusual behaviour worth knowing.

Listen: 试

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Sound it out

sh- Curl the tip up and back toward the front of the hard palate, creating a hollow underneath that darkens the sound.

-i One of pinyin's decoy vowels. After sh the letter signals that the tongue holds its position and voicing begins, producing a buzz rather than an "ee".

shì (falling) A steep drop from high to low compressed into a very short syllable. With almost no vowel body to carry it, the fall must be fast and complete.

Hear it in a sentence

我想试一试。

Wǒ xiǎng shì yi shì.

I want to give it a try.

Listen: 我想试一试。

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我想试一试。 shows that reduction. Wǒ and xiǎng are adjacent third tones so wǒ rises. Then shì falls, yi sits between the two verbs as a completely toneless syllable, and shì falls again. That middle 一 is neither yī nor yì nor yí — inside a reduplicated verb it simply has no pitch, which is a pattern the general 一 rules do not cover.

Where English speakers slip

"She" is the near-universal rendering and it is wrong on both counts: the tongue must curl back and there is no "ee" vowel. The other error is giving the linking 一 a full tone, producing shì yī shì, which sounds like counting rather than a casual try. Let it disappear into the middle of the phrase.