Mandarin Tone Trainer: Free Tone Practice and Test

The fastest way to hear Mandarin tones is to practise telling them apart, a few minutes a day. Press play, choose the tone you hear, and the trainer shows you whether you were right and draws the pitch of the recording next to the textbook shape. Start with the two contrasts learners mix up most, first tone against fourth and second against third, then move to all four, two-syllable words and the test.

How to Use the Trainer

• Single tones. You hear one syllable and choose its tone. Begin with 1 vs 4 (high and level against falling), then 2 vs 3 (rising against low), then All four. When you get 8 of 10 right, the trainer offers the next step. After each answer, play the same syllable in all four tones to hear the difference side by side.
• Tone pairs. Real two-syllable words such as 中国 (zhōngguó, 1 + 2) and 老师 (lǎoshī, 3 + 1), six for each of the 20 combinations, including the neutral tone. Tones sound different in words than on their own, so this is where most of your practice should end up.
• Test. Twenty questions, scored at the end, with a grid that shows which tones you confuse with which and a link to the drill for your weakest pair.
• See the tone. The solid line is the pitch measured from the recording, on a 1–5 scale from the bottom to the top of the speaker’s voice; the dashed line is the textbook shape. Real speech is never as neat as the textbook, which is exactly why it helps to see both.
• Record yourself. After each answer you can record yourself and play the model followed by your own voice. The trainer doesn’t grade your recording.

You can choose a female or male voice, or both. Your progress is saved in your browser, with no account. On a computer, keys 1–4 answer single-tone questions.

Why Tones Are Hard to Hear

English uses pitch too, but for attitude, not meaning: “yes?” rises and “yes.” falls, and it’s the same word. In Mandarin the pitch is part of the word. 买 (mǎi, third tone) means “to buy” and 卖 (mài, fourth tone) means “to sell”. Your ear has spent years learning to ignore exactly the differences you now need to notice, so it takes practice to hear them, not just knowledge of the rules.

The good news is that tone perception improves quickly with this kind of training. Learners usually find first against fourth easy after a few sessions; second against third takes longer, because both start low.

Telling the Second Tone from the Third

This is the pair almost every learner mixes up. Three things help:

• Listen to the start. The second tone starts in the middle and rises steadily. The third tone starts lower and spends most of its time down at the bottom of the voice.
• Listen to the end. The second tone ends high. In everyday speech, a third tone often doesn’t come back up at all; it stays low and creaky. The full dip-and-rise you learnt from textbooks mostly appears on its own or at the end of a sentence.
• Watch out for 3 + 3. When two third tones meet, the first one is said as a second tone: 你好 is written nǐ hǎo but said ní hǎo. The trainer accepts both answers for these words and explains why. Our guide to tone changes covers the other rules.

A Five-Minute Daily Routine

1. One minute of Single tones at your current step.
2. Two minutes of Tone pairs. After a wrong answer, play the word again and say it aloud with the recording.
3. Two minutes reading something with audio and listening for tones in whole sentences.

Take the test once a week to see your progress. Recognising tones is half the job; the other half is producing them in your own sentences. For that, you need feedback on your speaking: a tutor, a patient language partner, or the Chunking Chinese speaking trainer, which scores the tone of every character you say.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many tones does Mandarin have?

Four main tones plus a neutral tone. The first is high and level (mā), the second rises (má), the third is low and dips (mǎ) and the fourth falls (mà). The neutral tone is short and light, as in the second syllable of 妈妈 (māma). Our guide to the Mandarin tones explains each one.

Which Mandarin tone is the hardest?

For hearing, the third tone, because learners confuse it with the second. For saying, many learners find the fourth tone hard to make sharp enough and the third tone hard to keep low. The test shows which tones you personally mix up.

How long does it take to learn the tones?

Most learners can tell the four tones apart on single syllables after a few weeks of short daily practice. Hearing them reliably in fast speech, and producing them without thinking, takes months of listening and speaking, which is why it pays to practise with whole words and sentences early.

Can the trainer check my pronunciation?

No. It trains your ear, and you can record yourself to compare by ear, but it doesn’t grade your voice. For tone-by-tone feedback on your speaking, try Chunking Chinese.

For every syllable in all four tones, see the pinyin chart.

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