How to Understand Chinese Pinyin

The written Mandarin Chinese language is beautiful to see and artistic in its strokes. But, to most western people, speaking or reading Chinese is a mystery stemming from a lack of pronunciation clues in the characters themselves. PinYin (the Romanization of Chinese characters) serves this roll. I will explain the basics of PinYin and pronouncing Chinese words.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Understand the Role of PinYin.
   
   PinYin was introduced by the Chinese government as a means to aid in the teaching and learning of the Chinese language. It is also the means to type simplified Chinese characters on a computer. PinYin assigns vowels and consonants to the sounds of the Chinese language.

2. 你好吗 An Example.
   
   The characters at the beginning of this step are a simple and common greeting that you could say by pronouncing the English words "Knee How Ma". This means "hello" or literally, "You good?". The actual PinYin representation of these characters is 你=ni meaning you, 好=hao meaning good, and 吗=ma meaning a question. Notice that each word has a combination of consonants and vowels similar to English. The good news is that there are a finite number of consonant, vowels, and allowable combinations.

3. Understand the Consonants.
   
   You now know three of the consonants: n, h, m.
   
   The full list is
   b p m f
   d t n l
   g k h
   j q x
   z c s r
   zh ch sh
   y w
   
   Don't be too indimidated. Most of these are pronounced just like they are in English. There are a few that require special attention. Let's look at those in turn.
   
   'q' sounds like the 'ch' in 'check' or 'charge'.
   'ch' is similar to 'q'. However, curl your tongue slightly to the roof of your mouth. 'q' is pronounced with your tongue strait.
   
   'j' sounds like the 'j' in 'jeep'.
   'zh' is similar to 'j'. However, curl your tongue slightly to the roof of your mouth. 'j' is pronounced with your tongue strait.
   
   'x' sounds like the 'sh' in 'sheep'.
   'sh' is similar to 'x'. However, curl your tongue slight to the roof of you mouth. 'x' is procounced with your tongue strait.
   
   'c' sounds like the 'ts' in 'bats', 'mats', 'hats'
   
   'y' sounds like the 'y' in 'yes'
   
   'r' is pronounced with your tongue curled to the roof of your mouth but not touching it. Try forcing air past your tongue while attempting to make an 'l' sound.
   
   For each of these cases, the curled tongue results in a slightly whispier tone.

4. Understand the Vowels.
   
   From our example, you also know three of the vowels: i, a, o
   
   The full list is
   'a' like the 'a' in 'claw', 'father'
   'e' like the 'u' in 'pull', 'pump'
   'o' like the 'o' in 'tone'. It is a long 'o' sound
   'u' sounds like the 'oo' in 'too'
   'i' sounds like the 'ee' in 'bee'

5. Understand the Combinations.
   
   There are a few allowable vowel combinations.
   
   ai, ao, ang, iao, iang, uang
   ei, en, eng
   ie, iu, in, ing
   ou, ong, iong,
   ui, ue, un, uo
   
   Most of these are pronounced by combining the rules in Steps 3 and 4 for the consonants and vowels. However, the best way to understand this is to hear it spoken. See the link below for examples.
   
   The sounds in this step as well as those in Step 4 are known as "finals." This means that they occur at the end of the word. You can combine most consonants with finals to make the additional words. For instance "t" combines with the final "ui" for the word "tui" which means "leg".

6. Putting it Together.
   
   Let's put these concepts together and learn a few new sentences.
   
   Chinese (PinYin) [Meaning]
   我饿了 (Wo e le) [I am hungry]
   他爱你 (Ta ai ni) [He loves you]
   我要喝录茶 (Wo yao he lu cha) [I want to drink green tea]

Tips & Warnings

• Native Chinese speakers learning English often mis-pronounce the words soup and soap, interchanging one for the other. That is because the 'ou' sound in Mandarin forms the 'oa' sound in 'soap'. Don't be suprised if someone asks you to taste their 'soap'!
• The mispronunciation of the English 'r' is legendary. Use this knowledge to help you understand how to pronounce a Mandarin 'r'.
• Each Pinyin vocalization can carry many different meanings based on the tone and sometimes the context in which it is used. Tone is the most important. That topic was not covered here so as not to confuse things (I'll write another article to explain this). Suffice to say there are four tones: high, descending, ascending, and a combination of the first three that changes the meaning. You might call your mother a horse if you are not careful!

Resources

• Pinyin Vowel Sound Pronunciation
• How to Understand Tones in the Chinese Language

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on 10/29/2009 I'm learning Mandarin and every bit helps. XieXie