Polyphones in Chinese

Polyphones are very common in Chinese language. A polyphone is a character that can be pronounced in two or more different ways. With different ways of pronunciation, the polyphone usually has different meanings. Being able to use polyphones in Chinese properly will help us a lot in Chinese Learning. In this article, we are going to review the common polyphones.

polyphone 还

1. 好 There are two ways to pronounce it - hao3 and hao4. When pronounced in the third tone, it means well or good, as in the phrase 好人 (a good guy) or 好天气 (good weather). When pronounced in the fourth tone, it means “to like”. However, it is seldom used alone, but usually used with another word such as 喜好 and 爱好, both of which have the meaning of “to like”.

2. 行 It is one of the most common words that you will encounter on street signs. For example, we have 请绕行 and 银行. However, it pronounces different ways in the two phrases. In the first phrase请绕行, it is pronounced xing2, which means “to go”. The whole phrase means “Please go the other way.” It is pronounced hang2 in the word 银行, which means “bank”.

3. 赃 This character has two pronunciations. They are zang1 and zang4. The first tone, zang1, means that something is really dirty and is an adjective. The second tone, zang4, is usually used as a noun such as 心脏, which means heart.

4. 假With two distinct tones, jia3 and jia4, this character is easy to read and remember. Jia3, means fake. It can be used as an adjective, such as the word假如(if). It can be used as a noun such as, Jia4, 假期, which means vacation.