LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "已经" in Chinese?
yee-JING: a low sagging first syllable, then a high level second with an unaspirated j and a back nasal ending.
yǐjīng
Dip then plateau, with no rule inside. The left edge is where the action is: yǐ is a third tone and the pronoun in front of it very often dips too, so this adverb triggers conversion in almost every sentence it appears in. Both syllables are made with the tongue high and front, which makes it a tidy little articulation drill.
Listen: 已经
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
我已经吃过了。
Wǒ yǐjīng chīguole.
I've already eaten.
Listen: 我已经吃过了。
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我已经吃过了。 opens with wǒ and yǐ adjacent, both third tones, so wǒ rises. Then jīng and chī are both level — two high plateaus in a row — before guo and le trail off as toneless syllables. The sentence climbs, sinks, holds high for two beats and then simply expires.
Where English speakers slip
Breath on the j gives qīng. Keep the breath in. The nasal is the other issue: jīn with a front n is a different and very common syllable, so the merger changes the word. And the wǒ yǐ sandhi is missed as often as any in the language, because the two syllables are both tiny and both feel unimportant.