Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "手" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 手 in Chinese?

手 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʂoʊ˨˩˦/. It means “hand.” show with the tongue curled back, low and sagging. Retroflex hiss onto a vowel that starts open and closes toward "oo".

show with the tongue curled back, low and sagging. Retroflex hiss onto a vowel that starts open and closes toward "oo".

手 /ʂoʊ˨˩˦/

shǒu

A dipping tone whose fate depends on the next syllable, and it is a busy one — 手机, 手表 and 洗手间 all put it next to something that matters. In 手表 the following syllable also dips, so it converts; in 手机 the following syllable is level, so it does not.

Listen: 手

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Sound it out

sh- The tip curls up and back toward the front of the hard palate, hollowing the hiss. Distinct from the thin, forward x and from English "sh".

-ou Begins at a mid, fairly unrounded position and closes toward "oo". Starting fully rounded, as English does in "show", makes the vowel too dark from the outset.

shǒu (dip) Down into the basement of the range. The vowel is long enough to carry the low stretch comfortably, which makes this an honest third tone rather than a rushed one.

Hear it in a sentence

我的手很冷。

Wǒ de shǒu hěn lěng.

My hands are cold.

Listen: 我的手很冷。

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我的手很冷。 ends with three consecutive dipping tones: shǒu, hěn and lěng. Mandarin resolves a run like this by raising all but the last, so it comes out shóu hén lěng — two rises and one dip. Wǒ at the start is protected by the toneless de and keeps its own descent, so four written hooks yield two spoken dips.

Where English speakers slip

Substituting the flat English "sh" is tongue is the standard substitution, which pulls this toward the thin x. Curl the tip back. The vowel is often started fully rounded, giving English "show". And the three-in-a-row conversion in the example sentence is one of the harder ones, because it spans a noun, an adverb and an adjective.