Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "头" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 头 in Chinese?

头 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tʰoʊ˧˥/. It means “head.” toe with a strong puff of air, climbing from mid to high. The vowel starts less rounded than English "toe".

toe with a strong puff of air, climbing from mid to high. The vowel starts less rounded than English "toe".

头 /tʰoʊ˧˥/

tóu

No context alters this climb. The word appears at the end of a great many compounds — 木头, 石头, 里头 — where it is usually reduced to a toneless suffix, so the same syllable is a full second tone standing alone and weightless as a suffix. Which one you need depends on the word, not on a rule.

Listen: 头

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

Sound it out

t- Release at the ridge, and a real gust of breath follows. Mandarin aspirates more forcefully than English does.

-ou Starts at a mid, only slightly rounded position and closes toward "oo". English rounds from the beginning, which darkens the vowel too early.

tóu (rising) The tone lifts from mid to high across the glide. Since the vowel is already moving, the pitch has to be kept on its own independent upward path.

Hear it in a sentence

我头疼。

Wǒ tóu téng.

My head hurts.

Listen: 我头疼。

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

我头疼。 is three syllables and covers three tones: wǒ dips, tóu climbs, téng climbs again. Wǒ keeps its full descent because tóu rises. The two consecutive rises need separate downward resets — and since both syllables are about the same complaint, running them together is especially tempting.

Where English speakers slip

Under-aspirating gives dōu, a very common word. Push the air out. The vowel gets fully rounded from the start, giving English "toe", when it should begin more open. And the double rise in the example sentence collapses into one plateau unless you deliberately drop the pitch between tóu and téng.