Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "月" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 月 in Chinese?

月 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɥɛ˥˩/. It means “month.” üeh, dropping hard — start with the tongue set for "ee" and the lips rounded, then open to "eh". There is no w-glide in this syllable.

üeh, dropping hard — start with the tongue set for "ee" and the lips rounded, then open to "eh". There is no w-glide in this syllable.

月 /ɥɛ˥˩/

yuè

Nothing alters the descent and it flips the negator: 不 before it becomes bú. The pronunciation point matters more, though. Learners are taught that ü appears after j, q, x and y, and this is one of those cases — but because the spelling shows a plain u, the rounded front vowel is very easy to miss.

Listen: 月

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Sound it out

yu- (= ü) Written yue in pinyin, but the u is ü. Set the tongue high and front as for "ee" while the lips are pushed into a tight circle, and start the syllable from that position.

-e The vowel then opens to an "eh" as in "bet" while the lips un-round. So the whole syllable is a single continuous movement from a rounded front vowel to an unrounded open one.

yuè (falling) A steep, decisive drop across that movement. Since the mouth is already travelling, keeping the pitch on its own downward path takes deliberate control.

Hear it in a sentence

上个月我很忙。

Shàng ge yuè wǒ hěn máng.

Last month I was very busy.

Listen: 上个月我很忙。

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上个月我很忙。 gives shàng falling, ge toneless, yuè falling, wǒ dipping, hěn dipping, máng rising. Wǒ and hěn are adjacent dipping tones, so wǒ rises. Two consecutive falls at the start need separate resets, and then the sentence climbs out at the end.

Where English speakers slip

"Yway" with a plain w-glide is the standard error, and it produces a syllable Mandarin does not have. The tongue must stay forward while the lips round — if it slides back, you have made a w. Practise by saying "ee", freezing the tongue, then pursing the lips, and only then opening to "eh".