LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "书" in Chinese?
shoo with the tongue curled back, held high and flat. Retroflex hiss into a tightly rounded "oo".
shū
No part of the tone system disturbs this syllable, and it disturbs nothing either — a dipping tone before it keeps a full descent, and 一 before it becomes a falling yì rather than a rising yí. Its stability makes it a convenient landmark in sentences crowded with other tones.
Listen: 书
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我在看一本有趣的书。
Wǒ zài kàn yì běn yǒuqù de shū.
I'm reading an interesting book.
Listen: 我在看一本有趣的书。
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
我在看一本有趣的书。 gives yì before běn, since běn dips — the falling branch of the 一 rule. Then yǒu dips, qù falls, de fades, shū holds high. Wǒ keeps its dip because zài falls. Two dipping tones survive unchanged and one 一 converts, all in one sentence.
Where English speakers slip
English "sh" with a flat tongue is the standard substitution, and here it pushes the word toward xū with the thin palatal hiss. Curl the tip back until the sound goes hollow. The level tone is the other issue: on an open rounded vowel with nothing after it, English speakers let the pitch decline, which reads as a fourth tone.