First tone55
mā
High and level. It starts high and stays there.
Mandarin tones: the four, and the one taught wrong
A tone is a shape, not a colour and not a number. Here are all five, drawn to the same pitch scale.
Second tone35
má
Rising. It starts in the middle and climbs.
Third tone214
mǎ
Low. It dips and, said alone, comes back up.
Fourth tone51
mà
Sharp fall. It starts high and drops fast.
Neutral tone·
ma
Short and unstressed. Its pitch comes from the syllable before it.
The lines are pitch levels 5, 3 and 1 — the standard five-level scale.
Second or third? Listen for the turn, not the height
Learners are told the second tone is “high” and the third is “low”, then cannot tell them apart in real speech, where both sit in the same range. The reliable difference is when the contour turns: the second tone rises from the start, while the third tone keeps falling first and only then comes back. That is what our scorer measures, and it is what the free course teaches.