Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "三" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 三 in Chinese?

三 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /san˥/. It means “three.” sahn — an open "ah", a front n, and a pitch held flat at the top. The vowel is broader than English speakers expect.

sahn — an open "ah", a front n, and a pitch held flat at the top. The vowel is broader than English speakers expect.

三 /san˥/

sān

The pitch here is fixed and never negotiates with its neighbours. Where 三 does interact with its surroundings is in following words: in a phrase like sān diǎn the high level tone runs straight into a low dip, and the size of that drop is what makes the number audible across a noisy room.

Listen: 三

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Sound it out

s- A plain alveolar s with the tongue tip at the teeth, exactly as in English "sun". No curling, no palatal spreading — this is the simplest of Mandarin's three hissing initials.

-an An open "ah" as in "father", closed with the tongue tip at the ridge behind the teeth. Not the flat vowel of English "sand" and not the back vowel of "song".

sān (level) High and unwavering from start to finish. Because the syllable is short, there is a temptation to let it fall away at the end; resist it and cut the sound off while still at pitch.

Hear it in a sentence

现在三点。

Xiànzài sān diǎn.

It's three o'clock.

Listen: 现在三点。

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现在三点。 sets two falling tones against the level sān and then the low diǎn. So the pitch pattern is drop, drop, high, low — four syllables and four different pitch heights. Xiànzài in particular should not be smeared into one long descent; each of its syllables restarts high.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers commonly produce "san" with the vowel of "cat", which sounds noticeably off to a Mandarin ear. Open the mouth wider and pull the vowel toward "ah". The second issue is the finish: -an ends with the tongue tip forward, and letting it drift back turns the number into sāng, a different syllable altogether.