Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "只" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 只 in Chinese?

只 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʈʂʐ̩˨˩˦/. It means “only (zhǐ); also read zhī as the measure word for animals.” jrr, low and sagging, with the tongue curled back and no real vowel. Note the character is also read zhī as a measure word for animals.

jrr, low and sagging, with the tongue curled back and no real vowel. Note the character is also read zhī as a measure word for animals.

只 /ʈʂʐ̩˨˩˦/

zhǐ

The dipping tone converts before another dipping syllable, and as an adverb 只 sits directly in front of verbs — many of which dip. So the conversion fires often. The character's other reading, zhī with a level tone, is the measure word for animals, and the two are told apart by grammar rather than by anything audible in the syllable itself.

Listen: 只

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Sound it out

zh- Curled tip, no breath: it contacts behind the ridge and releases into a hollow hiss with no breath escaping.

-i A decoy spelling. The tongue holds its retroflex position and begins to voice, giving a buzzy syllabic sound with no "ee" anywhere in it.

zhǐ (dip) Down into the basement of your range. With almost no vowel body to work with, the low pitch has to be there from the first instant.

Hear it in a sentence

我只想休息。

Wǒ zhǐ xiǎng xiūxi.

I only want to rest.

Listen: 我只想休息。

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我只想休息。 stacks three dipping tones at the front: wǒ, zhǐ and xiǎng. Mandarin raises all but the last, so it is spoken wó zhí xiǎng — two rises and a dip. Then xiūxi gives a level syllable and a toneless one. Three-quarters of the sentence's third tones vanish in speech.

Where English speakers slip

"Jee" is the near-universal rendering, importing a vowel and flattening the retroflex. Curl and buzz. The bigger issue is the triple-third sequence above: producing three separate dips is slow, laborious and instantly recognisable as learner speech. Practise wó zhí xiǎng as a single unit rather than assembling it from three tones.