Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "知道" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 知道 in Chinese?

知道 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʈʂʐ̩˥.tɑʊ˥˩/. It means “to know (a fact).” jrr-DAO, with a retroflex first syllable held high and a hard-falling second. The first syllable has no real vowel.

jrr-DAO, with a retroflex first syllable held high and a hard-falling second. The first syllable has no real vowel.

知道 /ʈʂʐ̩˥.tɑʊ˥˩/

zhīdào

Level then falling, with no rule in play. In casual speech the second syllable is sometimes weakened toward a neutral tone, especially in the negative bù zhīdào, but the careful form keeps the full fall. The word's tonal profile — level then plunging — is a useful template for the many high-plus-falling compounds in Mandarin.

Listen: 知道

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Sound it out

zhī Curl the tongue tip back, make contact, release into a hollow hiss, and then simply voice it in place — the letter i here signals that no separate vowel follows. The pitch stays high and flat throughout.

dào Unaspirated d, then a glide from open "ah" toward "oo", with the pitch dropping steeply. The contrast with the high, buzzy first syllable is what gives the word its shape.

Hear it in a sentence

我不知道。

Wǒ bù zhīdào.

I don't know.

Listen: 我不知道。

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我不知道。 keeps 不 in its default falling form, because zhī is a first tone and only a following fourth tone would trigger the change to bú. So the sentence runs low, falling, high, falling: wǒ dips, bù drops, zhī jumps to the top, dào drops again. Two separate falls with a high plateau between them.

Where English speakers slip

The first syllable is where it goes wrong, usually as "jee" with a flat tongue and a real vowel. There is no "ee" and the tongue must curl. Beginners also frequently apply the 不 rule here when it does not apply, saying bú zhīdào — the rule fires only before a fourth tone, and zhī is not one. Getting that right requires checking the very next syllable, not the word as a whole.