你好 is a greeting meaning “hello”; its dictionary tones differ from the usual connected pronunciation.
Verified vocabulary and pronunciation#
CC-CEDICT lists 你好 as ni3 hao3, meaning hello or hi. The Open University’s pronunciation guide explains that, when two third-tone syllables occur together, the first is usually pronounced with a rising second tone. It uses 你好 as an example. The conventional written pinyin can retain nǐ hǎo while a pronunciation guide describes ní hǎo.
| Form | What it represents |
|---|---|
| 你好 | the written greeting |
| nǐ hǎo | the dictionary-tone spelling |
| ní hǎo | a guide to the tone change in connected speech |
Practice and interpretation#
Listen to the reference recording, then compare the words spoken separately and together. Record a greeting and compare it with that model. Do not turn the separate meanings of 你 and 好 into a claim that every greeting literally affirms someone’s moral goodness. Greeting choices also need a real conversational context.
References and lexical-data licence#
Lexical entries are adapted and selected from CC-CEDICT contributors, distributed by MDBG, release retrieved 23 October 2026, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Meanings are abridged and numbered pinyin is converted to tone marks. Practice instructions are newly written.