# Pronunciation: 尽



## yuechu

Hello/大家好，

I have a question about the character 尽. In the song, 祝福, the lyrics are:
一切尽在不言中

Would 尽 be pronounced jin3 and jin4? The difficult thing is that my dictionary gives almost the same definition for both tones. Is there an easy way of knowing the difference between the pronunciations? Is one of them more common?

Thanks in advance! 谢谢


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## elprincipe

Jin3 is used for expressions with the idea of "to the greatest extent". The most common words pronounced jin3 are: 尽管(don't hesitate to, although), 尽量(to try one's best ), 尽先 (give priority to), 尽快 (as quickly as possible), 尽可能 (as much as possible). These are probably almost all the possible words pronounced in this tone. 

Jin4 is used for expressions with the idea of "all", "completely' or "end". Some examples are 尽在不言中 (all is in what is not said, literally), 尽头 (the end), 尽是 (full of).


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## viajero_canjeado

In traditional Chinese, they are different words: 儘 （jin3) and 盡 (jin4). I agree that the meaning appears to overlap very much.


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## yuechu

Thank you for your answers! How about "你尽想美事儿！"? Which pronunciation/meaning does it have here?


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## Ghabi

baosheng said:


> How about "你尽想美事儿！"? Which pronunciation/meaning does it have here?


Here it means "only/nothing but", so it's pronounced jin4. A synonym is 净想好事.


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## yuechu

Thanks for your help last time, Ghabi! (Sorry this reply is so late!)

I find it difficult to determine which pronunciation I should use for this character. I was reading a book in Chinese today (释然的修行） and had a question about it in this sentence: "...现在的他们愿意*拼尽*一切的努力去生长"

Is it pronounced jìn here?


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## SuperXW

It is 拼尽jin4一切……
Using jin4 is always safe.


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## yuechu

OK, thanks, SuperXW!


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## retrogradedwithwind

Two exceptions are 尽管 尽量, which are jin3.

Other than those all are jin4.

I don't think this is too hard to remember.


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## SuperXW

This is still debatable. See post#2.
Also a lot of people pronounce jin4 anyway, and it won't cause any problem in understanding.


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## Skatinginbc

I always say jin4 盡量 (盡是竭盡的盡) and jin3 儘管 (儘，任隨，不限).
jin3 儘量 and jin4 盡管 also make sense but they sound like having a regional accent (speaking with a Mainland accent) to me.


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## retrogradedwithwind

well four exceptions are 尽管尽量尽快尽可能.

In my view it's possible to list all common words that reads jin3.


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## SuperXW

I still don't like the 3rd tone of 尽.
If 尽可能 reads jin3, how about 尽其所能?
Also it sounds identical to 仅可能.


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## retrogradedwithwind

Technically 尽可能 means to maximize the possibility and 尽其所能 means to do one's best.

Well to my ears only jin3 in 尽管 sounds natural as well.

All in all to remember all words with jin3 is not a hard thing.


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