All Mandarin pinyin syllables
Mandarin gets by on about 376 syllables — that is the whole sound system. 308 of them have their own page here: audio in every tone, a pitch curve you can record against, the articulation of both halves, and the words from HSK 1–3 that use them.
Every Mandarin syllable is an initial (the consonant it starts with, sometimes none) plus a final (everything after it), carried on one of four tones. Change the tone and you change the word — that is why each page below starts with sound, not spelling.
b[p]
p[pʰ]
m[m]
f[f]
d[t]
t[tʰ]
n[n]
l[l]
g[k]
k[kʰ]
h[x]
j[tɕ]
q[tɕʰ]
x[ɕ]
zh[ʈʂ]
ch[ʈʂʰ]
sh[ʂ]
r[ʐ]
z[ts]
c[tsʰ]
s[s]
y[j]
w[w]
∅no initial
These exist in Mandarin but none of them appear in the HSK 1–3 vocabulary this site drills, so there is nothing honest to put on a page yet. They will get one when the word pool grows.
ao · beng · ca · cang · ce · chai · chou · chuai · chuo · cou · cu · cuan · cui · die · diu · en · fo · gun · heng · juan · jun · kang · ken · keng · kua · kuan · kui · kuo · lia · liao · lin · lun · lüe · meng · miao · mie · nao · nen · nie · ning · nuo · o · pen · pie · qia · qiong · ran · rao · ruan · run · ruo · sa · sao · shai · shua · shuai · shuan · sou · sun · tun · tuo · wa · xiong · zei · zha · zhai · zhuai · zuan
Common questions
How many syllables does Mandarin have?
Around 376 distinct syllables, and roughly 1,300 once you count them in all their tones. English, by comparison, runs to several thousand — which is why Mandarin leans on tone to keep words apart.
Why do some syllables have fewer than four tones?
Because not every combination exists in real vocabulary. A syllable only gets a tone here if there is an actual word behind it, so what you practise is what you will meet.
Do I need to learn all of them?
No. The initials and finals are the real inventory — about 21 initials and 35 finals. Learn those, and every syllable becomes a combination you already know.
Reading about syllables is not the same as producing them. The free 2-minute check listens to you and names the syllables that natives are mishearing.