Chinese · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "走" in Chinese?

Q: How do you pronounce 走 in Chinese?

走 is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /tsoʊ˨˩˦/. It means “to walk / to leave.” dzoh, low and sagging. A "ds" onset at the teeth, then a vowel that starts fairly unrounded and closes toward "oo".

dzoh, low and sagging. A "ds" onset at the teeth, then a vowel that starts fairly unrounded and closes toward "oo".

走 /tsoʊ˨˩˦/

zǒu

What follows decides whether this dips or rises. Zǒu ba leaves it low, since ba is toneless; zǒu lù leaves it low too. But wǒ zǒu puts two third tones together and forces the pronoun to rise. As a very common verb of motion it turns up in sandhi environments constantly.

Listen: 走

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Sound it out

z- The tongue tip touches the teeth ridge and releases into a hiss — the sound at the end of "beds", with no voicing and no aspiration.

-ou Begins at a mid, only slightly rounded position and closes toward "oo". Starting fully rounded, as English does in "go", makes the vowel too dark from the outset.

zǒu (dip) The pitch sinks to the bottom of the range and lingers. Third tones are the longest of the four, so give this syllable more time than feels natural.

Hear it in a sentence

他走了。

Tā zǒule.

He's left.

Listen: 他走了。

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他走了。 is a compact demonstration: tā holds high, zǒu drops to the bottom, and le trails off toneless at that low level. The interval between the level tā and the floor of zǒu is the whole content of the sentence's melody, and squeezing it makes the sentence sound flat and uncertain.

Where English speakers slip

Reading z as English z is the standard problem, giving a buzzing "zoh" without the stop closure. Touch first, then hiss. Aspirating instead gives cǒu. And the tone tends to be under-produced because the syllable is short and the verb feels casual, but a mid-level zou reads as a first tone and does not mean this.