Chinese pronunciation generator: hear every Mandarin tone

Paste Chinese characters and hear them read aloud in Mandarin, tone by tone. Free, no sign-up.

22/500

Join the teams making the switch to Cartesia

Ranked #1

in Speech Arena leaderboard & Speech to Text leaderboard by Artificial Analysis

How to pronounce Chinese words

For longer Chinese audio and more voices, see Chinese text to speech. To spell out an English word by sound, use the phonetic spelling generator.

Type Chinese

Type or paste up to 500 characters of Chinese, or pick a sample. Type characters rather than pinyin.

Press play

Listen to the whole phrase, then pick a sample to hear one hard sound on its own.

Compare voices

Pick another voice from the menu and press play again to hear the same Chinese from a different speaker.

Mandarin sounds that trip up learners

Every Mandarin syllable carries a tone, and a few consonants have no English match. Pinyin and IPA are given for each example.

Four tones

The tone changes the word. Mā is mother, má is hemp, mǎ is horse and mà is to scold.

妈 mā · 麻 má · 马 mǎ · 骂 mà

Two third tones

When two third tones meet, the first one rises instead. 你好 is written nǐ hǎo but said ní hǎo.

你好 nǐ hǎo, said ní hǎo

不 before a fourth tone

不 (bù) becomes bú before another fourth tone, so 不是 is búshì.

不是 búshì · 不对 búduì

Retroflex sounds

Zh, ch, sh and r are said with the tongue tip curled back; z, c and s with it behind the teeth. 四 (sì, four) and 十 (shí, ten) differ this way.

四 sì · 十 shí · 四十四 sìshísì

Ü

Ü is ee said with rounded lips. 绿 (lǜ, green) and 路 (lù, road) differ only by it.

绿 lǜ [ly] · 路 lù [lu]

Custom Chinese pronunciation for developers

Some characters have more than one reading. As a surname 曾 is Zēng, but in 曾经 it is céng. A pronunciation dictionary can swap a name for a character with the reading you want, so 曾先生 is read Zēng xiānsheng.

A pronunciation dictionary is a list of words and how to say each one. Cartesia swaps every match for its sounds-like spelling before the text is read, on sonic-3 and newer.

Get an API key Read the pronunciation guide

pronunciation-dictionary.json

// Create the dictionary once, through the API or the Playground.
[
  { "text": "曾先生", "pronunciation": "增先生" }
]

// Then pass its ID with each text-to-speech request.
{
  "model_id": "sonic-3",
  "language": "zh",
  "pronunciation_dict_id": "<your dictionary ID>"
}

Pronunciation in other languages

All languages

Arabic pronunciation

ع and ح, the heavy consonants and long vowels, read aloud from Arabic script.

Try it

French pronunciation

Nasal vowels, liaison and the French r, in a Parisian or Canadian French voice.

Try it

German pronunciation

Umlauts, ich and ach, and z, in a Standard German voice.

Try it

Italian pronunciation

Double consonants, gli and gn, read by an Italian voice.

Try it

Japanese pronunciation

Kanji and kana read aloud, with long vowels and small tsu, in Standard Japanese.

Try it

Korean pronunciation

Plain, tense and aspirated consonants and the sound changes between syllables.

Try it

Polish pronunciation

Sz and ś, cz and ć, rz and ł, and the nasal ą and ę.

Try it

Portuguese pronunciation

Nasal ão, the Brazilian t and d, and the r, in a Brazilian voice.

Try it

Spanish pronunciation

Rolled r, ñ and the jota, in a voice from Mexico or Spain.

Try it

Explore more voice tools

All free tools

AI voice generator

Type a script and hear it read by a lifelike AI voice. Free to try, no sign-up.

Explore

Realistic text to speech

Speech that sounds recorded, from the model ranked first in blind listening tests on Artificial Analysis.

Explore

AI voiceover generator

Realistic narration from any script, for videos, courses, and podcasts.

Explore

Chinese pronunciation FAQs

How do you pronounce Chinese tones?

The first tone is high and level, the second rises, the third dips low, and the fourth falls sharply. Play 妈麻马骂 in the generator above to hear all four on the same syllable.

Is there a free Chinese pronunciation tool?

Yes. The generator on this page reads up to 500 characters of Chinese aloud in Mandarin, free and with no account.

Is this Mandarin or Cantonese?

Mandarin. The voices on this page, Tao and Jing, speak Mandarin Chinese. Cartesia's text-to-speech model also has a Taiwanese Mandarin accent.

How do you say hello in Chinese?

你好, written nǐ hǎo in pinyin but said ní hǎo, because two third tones in a row turn the first into a rising tone. Press the 你好 sample above to hear it.

Can I download the Chinese audio?

Yes, with a free Cartesia account. Make an MP3 or WAV of the same text in the Cartesia Playground, or request it from the text-to-speech API.

Can Cartesia read longer Chinese text?

Yes. Cartesia's text-to-speech model speaks 44 languages. For Mandarin voiceovers and apps, see the Chinese text to speech page.

Get started today

Talk to an expert.

Connect with a member of our team and learn how Cartesia can help you build world-class voice experiences.

Contact Sales

Start building.

Access our models via API and bring a voice agent into production in minutes.

Try Cartesia