How would I translate "He can sing in tune?"

[KiwiWC]

Meaning someone can sing with correct pitch.I know that 音準 means intonation. But I'm not sure how to use it in a sentence.

[Leslie Frank]

他的音調够准。

(That this refers to the person singing is understood.)

 

他唱歌音調够准。

(If you want to be more literal about it.)

 

I come from a Cantonese background so not sure if the words and sentence constructs work for Mandarin.

[abcdefg]

Just for fun, I asked Chat AI. 

"He can sing in tune." = 他能唱得很准 (tā néng chàng de hěn zhǔn) 

 

Playing with it a little more: 

"He is tone deaf." = "他是音盲" (tā shì yīn máng).

 

(I make no claims for accuracy.)

[KiwiWC]

I found the answer to this. 五音全 means someone who can distinguish and reproduce musical notes. It think it may mean someone with perfect pitch. The opposite is 五音不全 which means tone deaf. Another way to say tone deaf is 音痴. To say someone sings in tune it's 唱歌總是準調, while someone singing off key is 唱歌總是走調.

[Michaelyus]

There's also 跑调, "to go off-pitch". Not to be confused with the (usually!) homophonous 跑掉.

 

In Mandarin (at the very least!) 准 is a fairly common resultative complement for 唱, and also a common adjective for 音, so grammatically they are often associated together through resultative complements constructions involving 得 and apposition of the noun. Hence for example: 他音怎么老是唱不准？