Tap the speaker button below to start practicing your Mandarin tones!
Correct: 0  
Incorrect: 0  
Score: 0 %

Do you really need to learn the tones?

You may have heard it from other Chinese learners that it's not really necessary to worry about the tones when speaking Chinese, but we haven't met one successful case to prove that this is true. In China, you can find a lot of foreigners scraping by without paying attention to the tones, but their speaking is crude, extremely basic, and filled with frustration as they repeat themselves over and over trying to make the listener understand.


Admittedly, if you speak an entire phrase very rapidly at once, sometimes the speaker can understand you. But that's as far as you'll go, ever. Though it might seem like a tricky task in the beginning to learn and remember the tones, you will never be able to smoothly communicate with a Chinese speaker unless you learn them!


So if you're having trouble deciphering ma3 meaning "horse" from ma4 meaning "to scold", we've created a free tone trainer that can help.


Tone Trainer by WCC Instructions:

Step 1: Make sure you have headphones or speakers then tap the large speaker button in the middle of the Tone Trainer


Step 2: Listen carefully to the tone then click which tone you think is correct


Step 3: The correct tone with its Pinyin will appear below the tone trainer in the left corner


Step 4: Tap the speaker button to try again. Your total score will be calculated in the upper-right corner of the Tone Trainer.


**Tip: Tap any of the Pinyin pronunciations in the lower left corner to see what the Pinyin means and what Chinese characters use that Pinyin!


Find out more tips and tricks for learning Chinese here!


More helpful Mandarin tools:
Look up words and find great tools for reading and writing Chinese.
Go no further to quickly find the words you want! Our online dictionary gives you the most relevant results in Chinese first so you avoid choosing the wrong word.
In written Chinese, the majority of words are expressed using two Chinese characters, or Bigrams.
Want a Chinese name? We'll give you one hand-selected by a native Chinese speaker.
We now have a Chinese game that helps you practice your Chinese and lets you challenge your fellow Chinese learners.
Keep up to date with current topics related to Chinese language and culture.
Start your learning with the most commonly used Chinese characters in Mandarin Chinese.
Happy studying!