Standard Chinese; Mandarin
The phoneme inventory below shows every sound that functions as a meaningful unit in Standard Chinese; Mandarin — a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Eurasia . With 49 phonemes, it has a relatively large inventory compared to the world's languages. Like many languages in its region, Standard Chinese; Mandarin is tonal — the pitch at which a syllable is spoken changes its meaning. Sounds marked with a dashed border (*) are marginal: they appear only in loanwords or highly specialized contexts and are not part of the core phonological system.
Consonants
lateral fricative
Vowels
Tones
* Marginal phoneme — occurs only in loanwords or rare contexts.
How large is this inventory?
Standard Chinese; Mandarin has 49 phonemes, placing it in the 82th percentile of languages by inventory size — a notably large inventory.
Compared to English
For English speakers learning Standard Chinese; Mandarin, these are the sounds that will require the most focused practice.
In Standard Chinese; Mandarin, not in English (32)
These sounds don't exist in English — English speakers will need to learn them from scratch.
Most phonologically similar languages
Ranked by Jaccard similarity — the proportion of phonemes shared relative to the combined inventory of both languages.
Compare Standard Chinese; Mandarin with another language
See which sounds are shared and which are unique.