Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "也" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 也 in Chinese?

也 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /jɛ˨˩˦/. It means “also / too.” yeh, said low and sagging. Short syllable, simple sounds, and the whole difficulty is refusing to let the pitch rise.

yeh, said low and sagging. Short syllable, simple sounds, and the whole difficulty is refusing to let the pitch rise.

也 /jɛ˨˩˦/

yě

Because this adverb sits in the middle of sentences constantly, it gets caught in sandhi more than most. Wǒ yě puts two third tones together and forces wǒ upward; and if a third tone follows 也 as well, then 也 itself rises and only the last syllable keeps the dip.

Listen: 也

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Sound it out

y- A glide as in "yes": the tongue rises toward the palate and then releases immediately into the vowel.

-e After the y-glide the vowel is a front "eh" as in "bet", not the back unrounded e that the letter represents elsewhere in pinyin. The glide changes what the vowel does, which is why Mandarin's e seems so inconsistent at first.

yě (dip) Low and heavy throughout. On such a short syllable the dip is more of a sag than a curve, and the final upturn only appears if the word is isolated.

Hear it in a sentence

我也去。

Wǒ yě qù.

I'm coming too.

Listen: 我也去。

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我也去。 is three syllables and demonstrates the rule cleanly: wǒ and yě are both third tones and adjacent, so wǒ becomes rising while yě keeps its dip, and then qù falls sharply. Spoken properly it is wó yě qù — a climb, a sag and a drop, quite unlike the three flat beats a beginner produces.

Where English speakers slip

Because English de-stresses adverbs like "also", learners hurry over 也 and give it a mid-level pitch, which reads as a first tone. Slow down and let it sag. The vowel is the other issue: reading the e as a schwa gives "yuh", which is wrong here because the preceding glide fronts the vowel to "eh".