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The sound files given here are not great. The fidelity is poor and they were not made by a native speaker. But for a beginner they may help to get some idea of the tones and of the values of some letters or digraphs, including most of the sounds that give English speakers problems (like the use of the letter i as a dummy vowel after the letters c,r,s,z, and h).
| Tone Mark | Tone Numbers | Sample Character | Sound File |
|---|---|---|---|
| quán | quan2 | 全 | |
| xīn | xin1 | 新 | |
| xīng | xing1 | 星 | |
| zhuàn | zhuan4 | 转 | |
| bù | bu4 | 部 | |
| cǎi | cai3 | 采 | |
| cè | ce4 | 册 | |
| cí | ci2 | 慈 | |
| fèng | feng4 | 凤 | |
| fó | fo2 | 佛 | |
| gē | ge1 | 歌 | |
| guì | gui4 | 贵 | |
| lún | lun2 | 轮 | |
| mòu | mou4 | 愗 | |
| qí | qi2 | 其 | |
| qǔ | qu3 | 取 | |
| rì | ri4 | 日 | |
| shí | shi2 | 时 | |
| shǐ | shi3 | 史 | |
| sòng | song4 | 宋 | |
| suì | sui4 | 岁 | |
| tán | tan2 | 坛 | |
| tián | tian2 | 田 | |
| tuī | tui1 | 推 | |
| yǐ | yi3 | 乙 | |
| yún | yun2 | 云 | |
| zāng | zang1 | 牂 | |
| zhī | zhi1 | 知 | |
| zhōu | zhou1 | 周 | |
| zì | zi4 | 字 |
It is not easy to get a web browser to play sounds without bringing up a whole "media player," which covers up the web page, proposes upgrades, and takes you to a web source full of ads. I think that this page already contains player controls that should work in most browsers without doing all that.
I have added a Chinese character with some hesitation. If you have a friend who is a native speaker of NORTHERN Mandarin, s/he can pronounce it for you and should produce a normative pronunciation. If your friend is a SOUTHERN speaker, expect to hear some pretty big differences. Most Chinese speakers of Mandarin do not pronounce the language exactly following the official standard that is taught in school. And some deviate quite far from it. A journey of a few hundred miles can require even a native speaker to have a Mandarin-to-Mandarin interpreter for a few days before the speech of the new region becomes understandable.
Special note on tone: In Mandarin there is no concern with the absolute pitch of a tone, but only the tone contour (even, rising, dipping, or falling). The deliberate difference in pitch (but not contour) between zhī and zhōu in this table would be a tonal difference in Cantonese, for example, but it is irrelevant in Mandarin.