Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "牙刷" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 牙刷 in Chinese?

牙刷 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ja˧˥.ʂwa˥/. It means “toothbrush.” yah-SHWAH: a rising first syllable, then a high level second with the tongue curled back and lip-rounding.

yah-SHWAH: a rising first syllable, then a high level second with the tongue curled back and lip-rounding.

牙刷 /ja˧˥.ʂwa˥/

yáshuā

A climb settling onto a plateau, with no sandhi. Both syllables share the same open vowel, so the word offers a clean comparison between a rising and a level tone on identical material — which makes it an unusually good drill for hearing what each contour actually does.

Listen: 牙刷

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Sound it out

yá A brief y-glide leads into a broad open "ah" with the jaw down. The voice climbs from mid to high across a fairly long vowel.

shuā An sh produced with the tongue tip curled back, then a rounded w-glide opening into the same broad "ah". Held level at the top, so the word climbs and then plateaus.

Hear it in a sentence

我的牙刷是蓝色的。

Wǒ de yáshuā shì lánsè de.

My toothbrush is blue.

Listen: 我的牙刷是蓝色的。

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

我的牙刷是蓝色的。 keeps wǒ at a full dip because de is toneless, then yá climbs, shuā holds level, shì plunges, lán climbs again, sè plunges, and the final de fades. Two rises and two falls alternating, with three toneless syllables keeping the rhythm loose.

Where English speakers slip

The tongue lies flat, turning the retroflex into an English "sh" and the rounded glide gets dropped, so shuā comes out as "shah". Curl the tip and round the lips before the vowel opens. On the first syllable, the rise is often skipped because a compound's first half feels unstressed — a level yā is a different word meaning duck.