欣赏(xīn shǎng) - to appreciate, to enjoy, to admire in Mandarin

欣赏 (xīn shǎng) is appreciation with a judgement inside it. You 欣赏 a painting, a view, a piece of music, or a quality in a person, and the word says that you have weighed the thing and rated it highly. English splits this across "appreciate", "enjoy" and "admire" depending on the object.

It is not a synonym for 喜欢. 喜欢 is bare liking and works for anything, including chips and cartoons. 欣赏 needs something worth appreciating, so 我欣赏薯条 is a joke, not a sentence. Used of a person, 我很欣赏他 means you think well of him professionally or morally, and it carries none of the romantic charge that 我喜欢他 does. Saying 我很欣赏你 to a colleague is a compliment about their work, nothing more.

The second syllable is a third tone, and in 欣赏 it follows a first tone, so it keeps its full dipping shape: xīn shǎng. It also appears in 观赏 (to view for pleasure) and 赏花 (to go and admire the blossom), a genuinely popular spring outing rather than a textbook phrase.