Mandarin tones & all 20 tone pairs

Most learners can sing mā, má, mǎ, mà in isolation and still lose their tones inside a real sentence. Mandarin teachers fix this by drilling tone pairs: 20 everyday two-syllable words that cover every combination of the four tones plus the light (neutral) tone.

1. The four tones + light tone in plain English

• 1st tone (high & level, ā): Hold a steady, high, comfortable pitch—don’t let it droop at the end.
• 2nd tone (rising, á): Start mid-voice and rise crisply, like asking “What?” in surprise.
• 3rd tone (low, ǎ): In real sentences, drop straight into your low register (a “half-third” tone); it only dips and rises fully when emphasized alone or at the end of a phrase.
• 4th tone (falling, à): Start high and drop decisively to the bottom of your voice, like a firm “No.”
• Light / neutral tone (unmarked, a): Short, unstressed, and quick—its pitch rests lightly after the syllable before it.

2. The 20 Mandarin tone-pair anchor words

These 20 HSK words are built straight into Mandarling’s Tone pairs deck. Once you can say these 20 words cleanly, your voice already knows the rhythm of nearly every two-syllable word in Mandarin:

3. The three tone changes (tone sandhi) every beginner meets

1. Two third tones in a row (3 + 3 → 2 + 3): Standard Pinyin still writes 你好 as nǐ hǎo and 可以 as kěyǐ, but the first syllable is spoken rising: ní hǎo, kéyǐ.
2. 不 before a fourth tone (bù → bú): Normally falling (不行 bù xíng), 不 rises to second tone before another fourth tone: 不是 bú shì, 不客气 bú kèqi.
3. 一 (“one”) inside phrases: First tone when counting (一，二，三 yī, èr, sān), rising second tone before a fourth tone (一下 yíxià, 一遍 yíbiàn), and falling fourth tone before 1st, 2nd, or 3rd tones (一杯水 yì bēi shuǐ, 一点 yìdiǎn).

4. See your own pitch contour on Android

In Mandarling, you can add all 20 tone pairs to your daily reviews in one tap. When you speak a phrase aloud, Mandarling checks whether your phone’s recognizer understood the word, spells out any tone sandhi on the card’s How to say it sheet, and—on Android 13 and newer—draws your pitch contour right next to the native voice model so you can see and hear which syllable drifted.