Sinosplice Language Resources

Mandarin Chinese
Tone Pair Drills
These drills are intended for beginner to intermediate students of Mandarin Chinese.
While the words for the drills were chosen with specific tones in mind, all words are
appropriate for first year students of Chinese. None of them are “nonsense words”
chosen merely for the sake of practice; they are all well worth learning. Although the
primary grouping of words is tonal, words are also listed in order of difficulty, with
difficulty level increasing from left to right.

Note to the Learner

These drills are designed to help students with some foundation in the tones of Mandarin
Chinese. They are not designed to help absolute beginners “learn tones” on their own.
Basic understanding of Chinese phonetics and tones is assumed.

Usage
Especially for beginners, the best way to practice these drills is under the tutelage of a
native speaker of standard Mandarin Chinese. In this way, early formation of bad habits
can be avoided. Intermediate students may be capable of performing the drills alone, but
would still benefit from the guidance of a native speaker.

These drills are designed to be practiced in a series of steps, which progress naturally in
level of difficulty:

1. Individual One-Character Adjectives. Beginners still struggling with the concept

of tones should focus on this first step. The theory is that since the words are grouped
by tones, through repetition students will mentally group these words together and
thereby strengthen tonal recall. Also, since the words are grouped according to tone,
the student need not focus on the tone mark, but instead on actual pronunciation. All
words in this section are extremely simple. Students will benefit from vocal
repetition of these words under a tutor’s guidance.

2. Individual Two-Character Adjectives. After the student can fairly consistently

produce individual tones in isolation he is ready for two-character tone combinations.
Two character adjectives provide useful such examples. In addition, their tonal
pattern is relatively fixed. Students will benefit greatly from repetition of these fixed

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tonal patterns. After the student has gained familiarity with the pronunciation of these
adjectives, the two-character tonal patterns learned can easily be applied to nouns,
verbs, etc. The vocabulary introduced in this section contains some relatively more
advanced words.

3. One-Character Modifiers + One-Character Adjectives. This step gently eases the

student into the most difficult aspect of speaking Mandarin Chinese: stringing tonal
utterances together. The student creates meaningful adjectival phrases by combining
a simple one-character modifier with a one-character adjective. This step is
deceptively difficult, because although these combinations are nothing more than
further two-character combinations, the tonal patterns are no longer “fixed.” In this
step, the tutor should pay special attention to combinations with third-tone modifiers
( 很 , 挺 ) and with 不 due to the variable natures of these characters’ tones in
combinations.

4. Two-Character Modifiers + One-Character Adjectives. Although the total number

of characters read increases to three with this step, it does not really represent a
significant increase in level of difficulty. Since the final characters of the two-
character modifiers are all second and fourth tone, there are no tone changes involved
when making combinations.

5. One-Character Modifiers + Two-Character Adjectives. This step represents a

significant leap in difficulty because not only must the student recall the “fixed” tonal
patterns of the two-character adjectives, but he must also then make necessary
alterations when combining with the modifier. Again, the tutor should pay special
attention to combinations with third-tone modifiers ( 很 , 挺 ) and with 不 due to the
variable natures of these characters’ tones in combinations.

6. Two-Character Modifiers + Two-Character Adjectives. As with Step 4, the only

real difficulty posed here is the increased length of the utterance.

7. Pronoun + Modifier + Adjective. To increase the level of difficulty and the

utterance length, nouns may be added to the modifier-adjective combinations. This
step not only drills students on practical utterances, but also reinforces the concept
that 是 is not a necessary component of noun-adjective constructs.

NOTES:
1. There are a few possible combinations which will not be natural, such as * 不不错 and *特别
特别. A native speaker will be very useful in pointing out these less natural combinations.
2. Pinyin syllables are normally joined when they represent a word (e.g. turan, feichang, etc.),
but are separated by spaces on these pages for easier reading.

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Characters
One-Character Adjectives
Tone Adjectives
1 新，黑，干，轻，酸
2 忙，长，强，红，油
3 好，小，早，晚，美，冷，短
4 大，贵，快，慢，坏，热，饿

Two-Character Adjectives
Tones Adjectives Tones Adjectives
1, 1 伤心，糟糕 3, 1 好吃，好听，紧张
1, 2 突然 3, 2 有名，好玩，狡猾
1, 3 危险，辛苦 3, 3 好懂，保守
1, 4 高兴，方便，安静 3, 4 好看，可爱，满意
1, 0 聪明，舒服，清楚 3, 0 暖和
2, 1 年轻，难听，难说 4, 1 用功，自私
2, 2 流行，无聊 4, 2 特别，好奇，热情
2, 3 难懂，明显 4, 3 性感
2, 4 不错，容易，合适 4, 4 重要，快乐
2, 0 便宜，麻烦 4, 0 漂亮，厉害，客气

One-Character Modifiers
Tone Modifiers
1 真
2 蛮，(不)*, (很)*，(挺)*
3 很，挺
4 不，太
* 不 (bu) becomes second tone when it precedes a fourth tone. 很 (hen) and 挺 (ting) both
become second tone when they precede a third tone.

Two-Character Modifiers
Tones Modifier Tones Modifier
1, 2 非常 3, 4 比较
2, 4 不太 4, 2 特别

Pronouns
Tone Singular Pronouns Tones Plural Pronouns
1 他，她，它 1, 0 他们，她们，它们
3 我，你 3, 0 我们，你们

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Pinyin
One-Character Adjectives
Tone Adjectives
1 xin, hei, gan, qing, suan
2 mang, chang, qiang, hong, you
3 hao, xiao, zao, wan, mei, leng, duan
4 da, gui, kuai, man, huai, re, e

Two-Character Adjectives
Tones Adjectives Tones Adjectives
1, 1 shang xin, zao gao 3, 1 hao chi, hao ting, jin zhang
1, 2 tu ran 3, 2 you ming, hao wan, jiao hua
1, 3 wei xian, xin ku 3, 3 hao dong, bao shou
1, 4 gao xing, fang bian, an jing 3, 4 hao kan, ke ai, man yi
1, 0 cong ming, shu fu, qing chu 3, 0 nuan huo (nuan he)
2, 1 nian qing, nan ting, nan shuo 4, 1 yong gong, zi si
2, 2 liu xing, wu liao 4, 2 te bie, hao qi, re qing
2, 3 nan dong, ming xian 4, 3 xing gan
2, 4 bu cuo, rong yi, he shi 4, 4 zhong yao, kuai le
2, 0 pian yi, ma fan 4, 0 piao liang, li hai, ke qi

One-Character Modifiers
Tone Modifiers
1 zhen
2 man, (bu)*, (hen)*, (ting)*
3 hen, ting
4 bu, tai
* 不 (bu) becomes second tone when it precedes a fourth tone. 很 (hen) and 挺 (ting) both
become second tone when they precede a third tone.

Two-Character Modifiers
Tones Modifier Tones Modifier
1, 2 fei chang 3, 4 bi jiao
2, 4 bu tai 4, 2 te bie

Pronouns
Tone Singular Pronouns Tones Plural Pronouns
1 ta, ta, ta 1, 0 ta men, ta men, ta men
3 wo, ni 3, 0 wo men, ni men

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Rough Definitions
One-Character Adjectives
Tone Adjectives
1 new, dark, dry, light, sour
2 busy, long, strong, red, oily
3 good, small, early, late, beautiful, cold, short
4 big, expensive, fast, slow, bad, hot, hungry

Two-Character Adjectives
Tones Adjectives Tones Adjectives
1, 1 sad, a mess 3, 1 delicious, sounds good,
nervous
1, 2 sudden 3, 2 famous, fun, cunning
1, 3 dangerous, hard (of work) 3, 3 easy to understand,
conservative
1, 4 happy, convenient, quiet 3, 4 good-looking, cute, satisfied
1, 0 smart, comfortable, clear 3, 0 warm
2, 1 young, sounds bad, hard to say 4, 1 diligent, selfish
2, 2 popular, boring/bored 4, 2 special, curious, enthusiastic
2, 3 hard to understand, obvious 4, 3 sexy
2, 4 not bad, easy, suitable 4, 4 important, happy
2, 0 cheap, troublesome 4, 0 pretty, impressive, polite

One-Character Modifiers
Tone Modifiers
1 really
2 pretty, (not), (very), (quite)
3 very, quite
4 not, too

Two-Character Modifiers
Tones Modifier Tones Modifier
1, 2 extremely 3, 4 rather
2, 4 not so 4, 2 especially

Pronouns
Tone Singular Pronouns Tones Plural Pronouns
1 he, she, it 1, 0 they, they, they
3 I, you 3, 0 we, you (all)

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Legal
Mandarin Chinese Tone Pair Drills is copyright John Pasden, 2003.

It is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

2.5 License.

Updates
You are using Sinosplice’s Mandarin Chinese Tone Pair Drills version 1.0 (simplified
character edition). For the latest version as well as the audio resources which accompany
this PDF file, please visit:

http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/