Tone Tiles
The daily pinyin puzzle: find today's Mandarin syllable + its tone in 6 tries. Same puzzle for everyone — new one at midnight.
- Today's syllable has ? letters + a tone. Type a real pinyin syllable, pick a tone (1–4), press Enter.
- blue right letter, right spot · orange in the word, wrong spot · gray not in the word. The round tile is the tone — blue means you nailed it.
- Type v for ü (just like a Chinese IME). Keyboard: letters, 1–4 for tones, Enter, Backspace.
Drills valid pinyin spelling
Every guess must be a real Mandarin syllable, so you're constantly recalling which letter combinations actually exist — zh-, ch-, sh-, x-, q-, -iang, -uan, -ong. That mental map of legal syllables is exactly what makes pinyin typing and reading fast.
Makes tones a habit
The tone is part of every answer, because in Mandarin the tone is part of the word — mā (mother) and mǎ (horse) share letters but not meaning. Guessing a tone daily keeps all four tones active in your memory.
Tiny daily habit, big compound effect
One puzzle takes two minutes, and daily retrieval spaced over weeks is one of the best-researched ways to make language stick. The streak counter and share grid do what flashcard discipline can't: make you want to come back.
- Open with a vowel-rich syllable — starters like xiang, zhuan or huang test common initials and finals at once.
- Think in initials + finals — pinyin syllables are built from an initial (zh, ch, x, q…) and a final (-ang, -iong, -uan…). An orange h often means zh/ch/sh, not h alone.
- Remember spelling rules — no syllable starts with i or u standing alone (they become y/w), and ü appears only after j, q, x, n, l.
- Don't guess the tone blind — tone 4 is the most common in Mandarin, tone 3 close behind. Play the odds early, then lock the letters.
- Stuck on what exists? The interactive Pinyin Chart lists every legal syllable — studying it between puzzles is fair play.
- Say the answer aloud — after solving, tap Hear it and repeat the syllable with its tone. Two minutes of pronunciation a day compounds fast.
Six Tries and a Tone: One Real Game, Then a Real Week
Here is puzzle #73, from 26 September 2026: four letters and a tone. The first guess,
jiao with tone 4, comes back with j gray, i orange,
a blue and o gray, and the round tone tile gray. Blue is the right
letter in the right spot, orange is a letter in the word but somewhere else, and gray is not in the word
at all. The tone tile is only ever blue or gray. Every guess must be a real pinyin syllable, so typing
help only gets the reply "help" is not a pinyin syllable
, and it costs no try.
The second guess, chai with tone 1, turns h, a and i blue and c gray, so only the first letter is wrong: zh or sh? The third guess, zhai with tone 3, turns every letter blue, and it is still wrong, because the tone tile stays gray. With tones 4, 1 and 3 gone, the fourth guess is zhai with tone 2, and the whole row turns blue: Nice one! The answer is zhái (zhai2), and Hear it plays it.
Transcript
- Meet Tone Tiles: six tries to find one pinyin syllable, and its tone.
- Blue, right spot, orange, wrong spot, gray, not in it.
- The round tile is the tone, blue or gray.
- Every guess must be a real pinyin syllable.
- So no, you can't type help.
- Three blue, so what goes in front?
- Every letter blue, and it's still wrong!
- Rude.
- Tones four, one and three are out, so it's tone two.
- zhái (zhai)
- zhái (zhai)
- Four guesses, three hundred points, and each guess you save adds a hundred.
- Same puzzle for everyone, and a new one at midnight.
- Here's a real week, seven puzzles in a row.
- Two solved in two guesses. Can you beat that?
- Real syllables, the right tone, six tries.
- Play Tone Tiles free, at The Pure Language dot com.
Real syllables, the right tone, six tries.
Solving in one guess scores 600 points, and every extra guess costs 100, so four guesses score 300 and six score 100. Everyone gets the same puzzle on the same day, and a new one starts at midnight. A real week of puzzles, #55 to #61 from 8 to 14 September 2026, played one after another on this page, was solved in 2, 5, 5, 3, 3, 2 and 3 guesses, and the stats panel read Played 7, Win % 100%, Streak 7 and Max 7. Keep the Pinyin Chart open, open with a vowel-rich syllable, then type your first guess.
Questions people ask
How do you play Tone Tiles?
Guess the day's Mandarin pinyin syllable and its tone in 6 tries. Type a real pinyin syllable with the shown number of letters, pick a tone from 1 to 4, and press Enter. Blue means the letter is correct and in the right spot, orange means it is in the word but in another spot, and gray means it is not in the word. The round tile at the end is the tone: blue if you picked the right tone, gray if not.
Is there a new Tone Tiles puzzle every day?
Yes. A new puzzle appears at midnight local time, and everyone gets the same syllable on the same day. The Streak in your stats counts the days in a row you have solved it.
Do guesses have to be real pinyin syllables?
Yes. Every guess must be a valid Mandarin pinyin syllable with the same number of letters as the answer — random letter combinations are rejected. That is what makes the game great pinyin practice: each round drills which letter combinations actually exist in Mandarin, such as zhang, xiong or chuan.
How does the tone guess work?
Mandarin has four main tones, and every daily answer includes one. After typing the letters, tap a tone button (1 = ā high flat, 2 = á rising, 3 = ǎ dipping, 4 = à falling) or press 1-4 on your keyboard. The round tone tile turns blue when correct. After solving, you can hear the syllable pronounced with its tone.
How do I type ü in Tone Tiles?
Use the ü key on the on-screen keyboard, or press the letter V on a physical keyboard — the standard way to type ü in every Chinese input method, since pinyin never uses the letter v itself. Syllables like nü, lü and nüe use it.