Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "心" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 心 in Chinese?

心 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɕin˥/. It means “heart.” sheen, held high and flat, with the thin x hiss and a front n. A true homophone of 新 xīn, "new".

sheen, held high and flat, with the thin x hiss and a front n. A true homophone of 新 xīn, "new".

心 /ɕin˥/

xīn

Level and immovable. Its identity with 新 xīn is complete — same initial, same final, same tone — so nothing in the sound distinguishes heart from new, and only context does. That is a useful corrective to the assumption that tones eliminate ambiguity in Mandarin.

Listen: 心

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Sound it out

x- Lips spread wide, tongue blade toward the hard palate, tip pointing down — a thin, bright hiss quite unlike the darker English "sh".

-in A tense "ee" closed with the tongue tip at the ridge. The tongue travels forward to close the syllable, unlike -ing where the closure happens at the back.

xīn (level) Steady and high through the vowel and the nasal. Cut it off while still at full height rather than letting it decline.

Hear it in a sentence

我的心跳得很快。

Wǒ de xīn tiào de hěn kuài.

My heart is beating fast.

Listen: 我的心跳得很快。

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我的心跳得很快。 keeps hěn at a full dip before the falling kuài. Wǒ also keeps its dip because de is toneless. So there are two unchanged dipping tones, and in between, xīn holds level, tiào plunges, de fades. The sentence has three separate weightless or low moments, which is what gives it its uneven rhythm.

Where English speakers slip

The x becomes an English "sh" for most learners, which pushes it toward shēn — a real word meaning body. Spread the lips and keep the tip down. The nasal is the other issue: xīng with a back nasal is extremely common, so the merger creates genuine ambiguity rather than mere accent.