Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "写" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 写 in Chinese?

写 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɕjɛ˨˩˦/. It means “to write.” syeh, low and sagging. The initial is the thin, smiling hiss of x, and the vowel is a front "eh" after a glide.

syeh, low and sagging. The initial is the thin, smiling hiss of x, and the vowel is a front "eh" after a glide.

写 /ɕjɛ˨˩˦/

xiě

Everything depends on what comes next. Xiě xìn leaves it low since xìn is falling; xiě hǎo would push it up to a rising tone. Note also the near neighbour 谢 xiè with a falling tone — writing and thanking differ only in pitch direction, and both are high-frequency words.

Listen: 写

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Sound it out

x- Lips spread into a smile, tongue blade raised toward the hard palate behind the ridge, tip pointing down. A thin, bright hiss quite unlike the darker English "sh".

-ie A quick "ee" glide into an open "eh" as in "bet". The glide is short and the "eh" carries the weight of the syllable.

xiě (dip) The pitch drops to the bottom of the range. On a short syllable like this the dip is more of a sag, and the final upturn only appears when the word stands alone.

Hear it in a sentence

我在写信。

Wǒ zài xiě xìn.

I'm writing a letter.

Listen: 我在写信。

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我在写信。 keeps wǒ fully low because zài is falling, then delivers a dip on xiě and a fall on xìn. So the sentence sinks, drops, sinks again and drops again — a genuinely low-pitched utterance with no rises at all, which is unusual enough to be worth hearing as a pattern.

Where English speakers slip

Substituting English "sh" for x is the standard failure and it matters here because 写 xiě and the retroflex shě are distinct syllables. Spread the lips and keep the tongue tip down. The tone is the second issue: a level or rising delivery collides with xiè, so writing a letter can come out sounding like thanking one.