| name | modern-mandarin-rhyme-tones |
| description | Guidelines for mapping modern Mandarin pronunciation (Pinyin) to traditional Ping (Level) and Ze (Oblique) poetic tones, and identifying modern rhyme families. |
Modern Mandarin Rhymes and Tones (中华新韵)
When a prompt specifies that rhyming and tones should be based on the "pronunciation of modern Mandarin" (中华新韵), you must discard the Middle Chinese phonology (平水韵) and use standard Pinyin rules instead.
1. Mapping Pinyin to Tones (平仄)
In modern Mandarin, there are four standard tones. They map to poetry tones as follows:
- Ping (平 - Level Tone):
- First Tone (e.g., mā, bā, tiān) -
mā
- Second Tone (e.g., má, bá, tían) -
má
- Ze (仄 - Oblique Tone):
- Third Tone (e.g., mǎ, bǎ, tiǎn) -
mǎ
- Fourth Tone (e.g., mà, bà, tiàn) -
mà
Constraint Checklist: When evaluating your drafted poem, sound out every single character in modern Mandarin Pinyin to verify if it is Tone 1/2 (Ping) or Tone 3/4 (Ze) to match the required metric template.
2. Modern Rhyme Categories
Words rhyme if they share the same main vowel and nasal ending in Pinyin. Below are examples of common modern rhyme groups:
- a, ia, ua: e.g., 花 (hua1), 家 (jia1), 涯 (ya2)
- an, ian, uan, van: e.g., 天 (tian1), 山 (shan1), 寒 (han2)
- ang, iang, uang: e.g., 乡 (xiang1), 阳 (yang2), 望 (wang4)
- en, in, un, vn: e.g., 春 (chun1), 人 (ren2), 尘 (chen2)
- eng, ing, ong, iong: e.g., 风 (feng1), 空 (kong1), 平 (ping2)
- o, e, uo: e.g., 多 (duo1), 歌 (ge1), 河 (he2)
Ensure that your rhyming characters at the end of even lines all fall into the exactly same modern Pinyin rhyme category. Usually, Ping tones are used for rhymes in regulated verse.
