The Twenty Tone Pairs: A Complete Drill

Twenty pairs, and how to get through them

Why pairs and not single syllables

A learner who can produce four tones on 妈 in isolation and still cannot be understood has met the real problem: modern Mandarin is overwhelmingly a language of two-syllable words, and a tone behaves differently depending on what follows it. The unit of practice therefore has to be the pair. Four full tones on the first syllable, and five possibilities on the second — first, second, third, fourth, and neutral — give exactly twenty combinations, and there are no others.

The table

First tone first

• 1+1 飞机 fēijī — aeroplane. Two flat notes at the same height; do not let the second sag.
• 1+2 中国 Zhōngguó — China. Flat, then a climb from mid.
• 1+3 中午 zhōngwǔ — noon. Flat, then drop to the bottom and stay there.
• 1+4 工作 gōngzuò — work. Flat, then a clean fall from the top.
• 1+0 妈妈 māma — mother. Flat, then a short light syllable a little below it.

Second tone first

• 2+1 时间 shíjiān — time. Climb, then hold high.
• 2+2 学习 xuéxí — to study. Two climbs. The second must start lower than the first ended, or the word turns into one long slide.
• 2+3 啤酒 píjiǔ — beer. Climb, then drop low.
• 2+4 学校 xuéxiào — school. Climb, then fall.
• 2+0 朋友 péngyou — friend. Climb, then a light syllable in the middle.

Third tone first

• 3+1 老师 lǎoshī — teacher. Low, staying low, then high and flat. This is the half third tone: no rise at the end of the first syllable.
• 3+2 美国 Měiguó — the United States. Low, then a climb.
• 3+3 你好 nǐ hǎo — hello. The first becomes a second tone: ní hǎo.
• 3+4 可是 kěshì — but. Low, then a fall.
• 3+0 姐姐 jiějie — elder sister. Low, then a light syllable that sits relatively high.

Fourth tone first

• 4+1 汽车 qìchē — car. Fall, then back to the top for a flat note.
• 4+2 面条 miàntiáo — noodles. Fall, then a climb from the middle.
• 4+3 汉语 Hànyǔ — Chinese. Fall, then stay at the bottom.
• 4+4 再见 zàijiàn — goodbye. Two separate falls, with a reset between them. Not one long slide.
• 4+0 谢谢 xièxie — thank you. Fall, then a short light syllable at the bottom.

The five that go wrong most often

1. 2+2 学习 — learners run the two rises together into a single long climb. Fix: cut the word in half, put a comma between the syllables, then close the gap gradually.
2. 4+4 再见 — the voice never comes back up, so the word becomes one falling ramp. Fix: say 再 … pause … 见, then shorten the pause.
3. 3+3 你好 — the sandhi is forgotten under pressure, especially inside longer phrases.
4. 1+1 飞机 — the second syllable sags, because European sentence melody falls at the end. Fix: hold a hum at one pitch, then put the consonants in.
5. Any pair ending in a neutral tone — the neutral syllable gets a full tone of its own, usually a fourth, and 谢谢 becomes xièxiè. Fix: make the second syllable half as long and half as loud.

Notice what four of the five have in common: your first language wants to end an utterance by falling in pitch. Mandarin does not allow the sentence to overrule the word.

A protocol that finishes the table in five days

Four pairs a day, twenty minutes total, five days.

• Day 1 — 1+1, 1+2, 1+3, 1+4
• Day 2 — 2+1, 2+2, 2+3, 2+4
• Day 3 — 3+1, 3+2, 3+3, 3+4
• Day 4 — 4+1, 4+2, 4+3, 4+4
• Day 5 — the whole neutral column: 1+0, 2+0, 3+0, 4+0

For each pair, five steps in this order:

1. Listen three times without speaking. Speaking too early fixes your own error rather than the model.
2. Speak over the model, at the same time, twice. Overlapping hides your own voice and forces you toward the target.
3. Say it alone and record it.
4. Play the two back to back and listen to the pitch only — ignore the consonants entirely.
5. Put the word in a short sentence and check that the tones survive: 我坐飞机去。 我学习汉语。 我们再见。

Then repeat the cycle for a second week. Twenty minutes a day for two weeks covers every tone combination in the language twice, which is more systematic coverage than most learners get in a year.

Two self-checks that need no teacher

The hum test. Hum the word with no consonants and no vowels — just the melody. If a Chinese speaker cannot identify the word from the hum, the tones are not carrying it.

The pointing test. Write two words that differ only in tone — 买 mǎi and 卖 mài, 汤 tāng and 糖 táng, 问 wèn and 闻 wén. Say one at random and have someone point. If they cannot, the problem is production, not their hearing.