LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "重要" in Chinese?
joong-YAO, both syllables dropping hard. A retroflex initial, a rounded back nasal, then a long open glide.
zhòngyào
Two consecutive falling tones, and Mandarin allows them to stand side by side. In practice the first is compressed and does not descend all the way, so the word is lopsided: a short drop then a fuller one. Producing two identical plunges is the standard rhythmic tell of a beginner.
Listen: 重要
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
今天是重要的一天。
Jīntiān shì zhòngyào de yì tiān.
Today is an important day.
Listen: 今天是重要的一天。
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
今天是重要的一天。 finishes with yì tiān, where 一 has become a falling tone ahead of the level tiān. Before that, shì falls, then zhòng and yào fall, then de goes toneless — so the sentence contains four separate descents. Restarting the pitch at the top each time is what stops it turning into one long slide.
Where English speakers slip
Most learners flatten the tongue into an English j, and the -ong vowel opens out to "ong" as in "long". Curl the tongue and purse the lips. On the tone side, English speakers give the second syllable an emphatic, drawn-out fall and clip the first one to nothing, when in fact both need a real contour — just with the first one shortened rather than deleted.