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What is Pinyin?

Chinese is not a phonetic language. Chinese has two systems, one is Chinese Character, the other is pronunciation system ? pinyin. The pronunciation is not related to the writing of Chinese words (characters). One character has one specific syllable. One syllable has three parts, initial, final, and tone. In pinyin system, there are 21 initials, 36 finals, and 4 tones. The writing of Pinyin is similar to English alphabet.

Chinese Tones

Chinese is a tonal language. Tones are the changes of the pitch in pronunciation of a syllable. There are 4 tones in Mandarin Chinese. Each Chinese word (character) carries a tone. Different tones carry different meanings.

Easy part

Chinese	English
a	ah
ai	i
an	ahn
ao	“all” as in ball
ang	“oung” as in young
e	“ ir” as in bird
ei	“ai” as in wait
en	“on” as in lesson
eng	“eng” as in english
i	“ea” as in sea
ia	ea-ah
ie	“ye” as in yes
o	“our” as in hour
ou	oh
u	“oo” as in bamboo
ua	“wh” as in white
uai	why
uan	one
uang	“wan” as in want
ui (uei)	way

Hard part

Chinese Pinyin	English
l	L as in low and look
j	j as in jeep and joy
x	sh as in she
zh	j as in job
ch	ch as in catch
sh	Sh as in fish
z	ds as in deds
c	ts as in cats
s	s as in silk
r	r as in rain
u	Close to the u sound in such French words as Lune and rue
u	oo as in too