Pronunciation
Chinese pronunciation assessment that tells you what to fix
You can't correct a sound you can't hear yourself getting wrong. Record a word, and see the exact syllable — and the exact part of that syllable — that breaks down.
Mandarin is built from syllables, and every syllable is made of three parts: an initial (the starting consonant), a final (the vowel ending), and a tone (the pitch pattern). When a Chinese listener asks you to repeat yourself, it's almost never because of your vocabulary — it's because one of those three parts missed. Most learning tools stop at "correct" or "try again", which tells you nothing about what to change. Hanlyny listens to each syllable separately and reports back on all three, so practice stops being guesswork.
Try it on three words — no account, no upload
Say each word out loud. Every syllable comes back scored on its tone, its initial and its final.
Step 1 of 3
你好
nǐ hǎo
hello
Now you say it
One syllable, three scores
Take hǎo (好, "good"): it is h + ao + third tone. Get any one of the three wrong and the word lands badly — but each one needs a completely different fix.
Tone
The pitch pattern riding on the syllable. Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral one, and the tone is part of the word, not decoration.
mā · má · mǎ · mà — one syllable, four different words
Initial (声母)
The consonant the syllable starts with. There are 23 of them, and the pairs that sound identical to an untrained ear — zh/z, ch/c, sh/s, j/q — are where most learners lose points.
h in hǎo — drop it or soften it and the word falls apart
Final (韵母)
Everything after the initial: the vowel and any nasal ending. 36 in total, including the notorious an/ang and en/eng pairs.
ao in hǎo — shorten it and hǎo starts sounding like hào
Errors come with a name
A red syllable on its own is useless. Every miss is labelled with what went wrong and what it sounded like instead.
- Tone — the pitch pattern was wrong (you said mǎ where the word was mà)
- Initial — the starting consonant was wrong (zh came out as z)
- Final — the vowel ending was wrong (an came out as ang)
What your score means
A score is only useful if you know what to do with it. Here is how to read yours.
85–100
Understood instantly
A native listener gets it on the first try, without context. Move on to full sentences and start working on speed and rhythm instead.
60–84
Close — one sound is off
You're in the right neighbourhood. Look at which syllable turned yellow and which part was flagged; that single sound is your whole practice session.
Below 60
Normal for a first try
Tones take repetition before your ear and your mouth agree. Record the same word three times in a row and watch the number move — that's the fastest feedback loop there is.
Your overall score is just the average of every syllable in the recording — so one strong syllable can't hide a weak one.
Why not just one overall score?
Because "your pronunciation is 72%" doesn't tell you what to do next. Splitting the score by syllable, then by tone / initial / final, turns a vague judgement into a specific instruction: this syllable, this part, try it again. It also stops the most common waste of practice time — drilling tones that were already fine while the real problem sits two syllables over.
Your voice never leaves your device
Scoring runs entirely in your browser. Your recording is analysed on your own device and is never uploaded or stored. You can also skip recording altogether and just listen to the model audio and practise along.
Where to go next
FAQ
- How is this different from a pronunciation quiz?
- A quiz asks you to recognise a sound. This asks you to produce one, then measures what you actually said against the target — syllable by syllable, on tone, initial and final. Recognition and production are different skills, and only one of them makes you understood.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. It runs in a recent Chrome, Edge or Safari. You'll be asked for microphone permission the first time; nothing is downloaded to your computer beyond the scoring model itself.
- Will it work with my accent?
- Yes — that's the point. The scorer isn't comparing you to one native speaker, it's checking whether each syllable you produce is recognisable as the intended syllable. A Spanish, Arabic or English accent that keeps the tone and the initial/final intact will score well.
- What's a good score for a beginner?
- Below 60 on your first attempt is completely normal. Tones are the hard part and they improve quickly with repetition — most people see a jump within a single session of recording the same word three or four times.
- Is my recording stored anywhere?
- No. Scoring happens on your device, and anonymous test recordings are never uploaded or kept.
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