Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "所以" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 所以 in Chinese?

所以 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /swo˨˩˦.i˨˩˦/. It means “so / therefore.” swor-YEE — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you actually say suó yǐ.

swor-YEE — but both syllables dip in citation form, so the first converts and you actually say suó yǐ.

所以 /swo˨˩˦.i˨˩˦/

suǒyǐ

A textbook conversion: two dipping tones in contact, so the first becomes a rising second tone. What makes 所以 especially demanding is that it usually precedes a subject pronoun, and if that pronoun also dips you end up with three dipping tones in a row — which Mandarin resolves by raising all but the last.

Listen: 所以

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

suǒ A thin alveolar s at the teeth, then a rounded glide from "oo" out toward "aw". Written with a dipping hook but spoken as a rise in this word, because of what follows.

yǐ Just a tense "ee", spread and steady, and this is the syllable that keeps the low contour. Being second in the pair, it survives as written.

Hear it in a sentence

下雨了，所以我在家。

Xià yǔ le, suǒyǐ wǒ zài jiā.

It's raining, so I'm staying home.

Listen: 下雨了，所以我在家。

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

下雨了，所以我在家。 does exactly that. After the comma, suǒ, yǐ and wǒ are three consecutive dipping tones, so the first two both rise: suó yí wǒ. Only the pronoun keeps its dip. Three third-tone hooks on the page and one third tone in the mouth — this sentence is one of the clearest illustrations of the rule you will find.

Where English speakers slip

Producing three laboured dips is the standard failure, and it makes the clause sound like it is being read out syllable by syllable. Learn suó yí wǒ as a fixed rhythmic unit. The other error is the s, which learners sometimes retroflex by analogy with sh — keep the tongue tip at the teeth and the hiss thin.