轻声 (qīng shēng) — (linguistics) neutral tone, light stress; soft voice, low voice
Definition
轻声 has two unrelated senses: in linguistics, the 'neutral tone' (an unstressed syllable in Mandarin, e.g. the second 妈 in 妈妈); in everyday use, a 'soft, quiet voice'.
noun
(linguistics) neutral tonelight stresssoft voicelow voice
Examples
- ，轻声。Zài pǔ tōng huà lǐ, qīng shēng shì yì zhǒng fēi cháng zhòng yào de yǔ yīn xiàn xiàng.In Mandarin, the neutral tone is a very important phonetic phenomenon.
- ，轻声。Tā shuō huà de shēng yīn hěn xiǎo, jī hū chéng le qīng shēng.His speaking voice is so soft that it's almost a whisper.
- 轻声。Lǎo shī qǐng wǒ men yòng qīng shēng lǎng dú zhè shǒu shī.The teacher asked us to read this poem in a soft voice.
Appears in
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