Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "手表" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 手表 in Chinese?

手表 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʂoʊ˨˩˦.pjɑʊ˨˩˦/. It means “watch.” show-BYAO — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you say shóu biǎo.

show-BYAO — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you say shóu biǎo.

手表 /ʂoʊ˨˩˦.pjɑʊ˨˩˦/

shǒubiǎo

A textbook conversion: two dipping tones in contact, so the first becomes a rising second tone. It is worth comparing directly with 手机 shǒujī, where the second syllable is level and no conversion occurs — the same first syllable, two different pronunciations, decided entirely by the neighbour.

Listen: 手表

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Sound it out

shǒu The sh is retroflex — tip up and back — onto a vowel that starts fairly unrounded and closes toward "oo". Written with a dipping hook but spoken as a rise in this word.

biǎo Unaspirated b, then a glide from "ee" through wide open "ah" toward a rounded finish. This syllable keeps the low contour, being second in the pair.

Hear it in a sentence

我的手表很旧。

Wǒ de shǒubiǎo hěn jiù.

My watch is very old.

Listen: 我的手表很旧。

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我的手表很旧。 keeps wǒ at a full dip because de is toneless, then shǒu rises before biǎo, biǎo keeps its dip, hěn keeps its own dip because jiù falls, and jiù plunges. Three written dipping hooks, two spoken dips, and one conversion — with the conversion inside the word rather than across a boundary.

Where English speakers slip

Producing two laboured dips is the standard failure, and it makes the word sound spelled out. Say shóu biǎo as one unit. The segments compound it: the retroflex flattens into an English "sh", the b gets aspirated into piǎo, and the long -iao glide loses its open middle.