Chinese Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin Overview

Chinese Pinyin is the romanization of the Chinese "written sound". Romanization approximates Mandarin pronunciation with Western spellings and includes a tone mark to signify the pitch of a word.

Just like alphabet A - Z to English, Pinyin provides a phonetic alphabet for Chinese and is taught from Grade 1 in Chinese elementary schools. It is a fundamental tool used for learning the spelling of Chinese characters throughout Chinese language study.

Pinyin is used by most modern Chinese dictionaries to denote pronunciation of characters. It is also an efficient input method in Chinese computer software, which is natively supported by Microsoft Windows OS.

After mastering Pinyin, you can easily read Chinese books with Pinyin marked, learn Chinese characters by looking in the dictionary, or input Chinese characters into your computer, it will take your Chinese study to a higher level.

25 out of 26 English alphabet letters are used in Pinyin. Letter 'v' is not used, while letter ' ü ' is added to represent the vowel sound of 'yu'.

Pinyin includes consonants and vowel letters.

1. Consonant letters

There are 20 consonant letters use in Mandarin (three consonants are represented by combinations of two letters - 'zh', 'ch' and 'sh'), they are:

b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r, y, w

2. Vowel letters

There are 6 vowel letters used in Mandarin:

a, o, e, i, u, ü

3. Syllables

Syllables are composed by consonants, vowels and tone.

The consonant that begins a syllable is initial (listen to the pronunciation in mp3 format online at http://www.learn-chinese-language-online.com/chinese-pinyin-initials.html) , they can be:

b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r, y, w

The rest parts after the initial are finals. Final ( listen to the pronunciation in mp3 format online at http://www.learn-chinese-language-online.com/chinese-pinyin-finals.html ) can be a single vowel, a combination of vowels, or combination of vowels and nasals 'n' or 'ng':

There are 6 simple finals which are single vowels, they are : a, o, e, i, u, ü .

The others are compound finals, they are:

ai, ao, ou, ei, ia, ie, iao, iou, ua, uo, uai, uei, üe,

an, ang, ong, en, eng, in, ing, ian, iang, iong, uen, ueng, uan, uang, ün, üan

The combination of 21 initials and 33 finals in Mandarin romanization (there are five more finals, but they share the same symbols as other finals) form about 420 different sounds.

A word consists of initial + final + tone. In some cases, the initial can be omitted.

Although most of the sounds are generally close to how they are used and pronounced in English, some don't follow English letters exactly and are pronounced differently.

Pay extra attention to the differences and listen closely to each Chinese sound, it takes practices to pronounce correctly.

Rosie From Learn Chinese Language Online (http://www.learn-chinese-language-online.com )

The goal of Learn Chinese Language Online (LCLO) is to reduce the Mandarin Learning curve, promote and introduce the most efficient way to grasp the broad foundation of Chinese language.

---

GROUSE ... GROUSE ... GROUSE!!!

I realize that we here in the United States consider... Read More

Learning a Foreign Language: the Psychological Factor

When it comes about learning a foreign language, many people... Read More

Mexican Living: Todays Obsession

I would like to talk about one of my many... Read More

English Slang For Perplexed Tourists

I watched the British version of 'Big Brother' recently. That's... Read More

Teaching Reading to English Language Learners

There is an increasing amount of English language learners represented... Read More

7 Words Americans Should Stop Using Until Further Investigation

Relationship: Here is a word that is used to qualify,... Read More

How To Learn Spanish Quickly and Easily

Spanish is a very useful language to learn as it... Read More

Chinese Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin Overview

Chinese Pinyin is the romanization of the Chinese "written sound".... Read More

Learn Korean: Part 1 - Asian Languages and Language Families

So, you have always been fascinated by Asian culture have... Read More

Japanese Kanji Learning: Short-Cuts to Rapid Mastery (Part 2)

In Japanese Kanji Learning: Short-Cuts to Rapid Mastery Part 1,... Read More

Don?t Take The Romaji Short-Cut When Learning Japanese

This is an issue many Japanese learners come up against,... Read More

What Does an Interpreter Do?

Many people get confused as to the difference between an... Read More

Learn Italian for Free

Italian is one of the most widespread languages in the... Read More

Learn Italian in Your Hometown

Are you interested in learning the Italian language right in... Read More

Show Me the Bunny: Language Acquisition

Some children are really funny about experimenting with speech. Nonetheless,... Read More

Learning a Foreign Language: Learn from the Blind

In a previous article, you read that to establih your... Read More

Japanese Kanji Learning: Short-Cuts to Rapid Mastery (Part 1)

What? Kanji can be learned quickly? This seems an impossible... Read More

Preschool Spanish

Why an EarlyAGE 2nd Language?Research indicates that from ages 1... Read More

Learning French in Paris

Nothing can be more frustrating than to be in France... Read More

Uncommon Facts / Rules of English Language

English is an international language. It has so many grammar... Read More

Second Language Competence Beneficial but often Misunderstood

Second language learning has associated with it many types of... Read More

Whats In A Word? More Than You Realize

What's in a word? Apparently more than we might want.For... Read More

Learn Korean: Part 2 - Social Status in Culture

Part 1 of this series covered the language and language... Read More

Aphasia: The Cruelest Language Barrier

Imagine the following scenario: You wake up one morning and... Read More

Learn to Speak Basic Chinese (Mandarin) Words and Phrases

The Chinese Language and dialectsEach province, each city and even... Read More

Learn Italian in Italy

You can combine your love of the Italian language with... Read More

English Language Sputtering Online Like an Old Ford!

Sad, but true. Just about everywhere you look online, the... Read More

English Has Come A Long, Long Way...

I often wonder what would happen if Shakespeare were to... Read More

Bridging the Language Gap Using Bilingual Picture Books

There are more than 39 million Hispanics live in the... Read More

How Ronzoni Italian Foods Helped My Dad Learn English

My dad likes to say, he was made in Italy,... Read More

Learning a Foreign Language: Why Should you Learn Words You Never Use in Your Mother Tongue?

Imagine a child sitting in front of a desk, his... Read More

Learning a Foreign Language: the Ventriloquists Lesson

The main feature you have to master, in order to... Read More

Teaching English in Mexico: A Decent Living?

What's more disappointing than a person who makes a promise... Read More