How many tones in Mandarin Chinese? The question is raised because there is a soft tone in Chinese language. Even though people often use 5 or 0 or nothing to mark the syllable of soft tone, foreigners who attend to school to study Mandarin should aware that the soft tone is not a kind of tone in Chinese. In total, there are only four tones in Chinese, namely, the first tone, the second tone, the third tone and the fourth tone.

First of all, the tone and soft tone are different in nature. The former belongs to a pronunciation level phenomenon indicated in simple or compound vowel of the syllable. However, the latter indicates the level, length and strength showed in the whole syllable. In addition, Chinese language is a kind of tone language of syllable type. Therefore, almost every single syllable in Chinese language has a single tone and can be articulated singly. But the soft tone happens in the words or clauses of more than two syllables and it is not allowed to speak singly.

Besides, the tone is basically fixed and the changes depend on the changes of the conditions of the syllables after it. The important thing you should pay attention when you study Chinese is that the tone of soft tone is not a kind of tone we mean, but just “sound”. After realizing that the soft tone does not belong to the four tones in Chinese, you should know clearly the four tones, including how to articulate them and the features of them.

The first tone is the high and level tone like the tone of the characters 青、春、开、心. The most obvious feature of the first tone is that the sound is really high. The second tone is the rising tone which can be indicated by the characters like 银、行、回、国. The tone keeps rising, but sometimes the short falling or level tone happens at the beginning of the tone.

The third tone should be the falling-rising tone. You can feel it by articulating the pronunciation of 眼、耳、手、脚. This tone is characterized by the low sound. If you see the characters like 再、见、救、命 when you study Mandarin online, you should know they belong to the fourth tone, that is, the falling tone. Sometimes, the short rising or level tone is allowed at the beginning.