Guide to Using Pinyin
Pinyin (拼音 literally "spelling sounds"), is the most widely used Mandarin romanization system of China, Singapore, and many other countries. The U.S. Library of Congress uses Pinyin to catalog its collection in Chinese, most contemporary dictionaries use Pinyin to spell out Chinese characters, and the vast majority of Chinese textbooks published overseas use Pinyin.
Advice on Learning Approach
The sounds represented by a certain letter are not always the same in different languages. Therefore, when learning Pinyin, instead of referring to the English pronunciation of each letter, you should try to establish a direct connection between a certain letter, or sequence of letters (like "i", "sh", "ang", etc.) and the exact Mandarin sound represented. In other words, using Chinese characters as reminders of sounds represented by Pinyin letters will be much more sensible since you already know the Mandarin sounds.
The Mandarin Syllable
Each Chinese written character is spoken as a single syllable. Each syllable consists of up to three components:
| Initial | + | Final | + | Tone | = Pinyin Syllable |
| 声母 | 韵母 | 声调 | |||
| shēngmǔ | yùnmǔ | shēngdiào |
Initials
Initials are consonants and always appear at the beginning of a syllable. There are 21 initials in total and they fall into six groups by similar sound.
| b | p | m | f | d | t | n | l | g | k | h | j | q | x | zh | ch | sh | r | z | c | s |
Finals
There are a total of 36 finals - shown below.
| a | o | e | ai | ei | ao | ou | an | en | ang | eng | ong | er | ||||||||||||||
| i | ia | ie | iao | iou (iu) | ian | in | iang | ing | iong | |||||||||||||||||
| u | ua | uo | uai | uei (ui) | uan | uen (un) | uang | ueng | ||||||||||||||||||
| ü | üe | üan | ün |
Tones
Words in Mandarin that have the same pronunciation can have different meanings depending on how the word is said. How the the pitch of the speaker's voice changes as the word is said is what we call "tone". There are five tones in Mandarin. The tones are represented in pinyin by marks above the words, or can be written afterward with a number 1-5.
For example, the syllable "ma" has five different meanings, depending on which of five different tones is applied.
| Tone | Name | Description of Tone | Example | Meaning | ||||
| 1st Tone | (yī shēng) | The straight line over the word indicates that the word should be said with a flat and unchanging high tone. | mā | mother | ||||
| 2nd Tone | (ér shēng) | The mark going up above the word indicates the word should be said in a rising tone. | má | to bother or annoy | ||||
| 3rd Tone | (sān shēng) | The down and then up mark above the word indicates that the word should be said with a falling and then rising tone. | mǎ | horse | ||||
| 4th Tone | (sì shēng) | The down mark above the word indicates that the word should be said with a falling tone. | mà | to scold | ||||
| 5th Tone (Neutral) |
(qīng shēng) | When a word has no tone or mark above the word it is said to be neutral and is pronounced in an abbreviated manner with no emphasis. | ma | question grammar particle |
(Note: hover over each example word to hear the tone spoken.)
The picture below illustrates the proper relative pitch of voice used for each tone:
Tone Mark Placement
1. The tone mark is always placed on the vowel.
2. If there is more than one vowel, choose the vowel in the order of "a", "o", "e", "i", "u", "v". For example, the word "tian" should have a tone mark on the letter "a" because "a" comes before "i".
Exception: For words that contain "ui" or "iu", put the mark on the second letter.
3. When a word is intended to be spoken in the fifth (neutral) tone, no tone mark is shown.
