Pin Yin literally means 'to combine sounds'. It is the phonetic system used to pronounce Chinese characters. Once you master Pin Yin, you can simply say anything in Chinese without having to learn the characters.
Pin Yin system consists of Latin letters. Similar to the English phonetics, Pin Yin has Initials (Consonants) and Finals (Vowels). A combination of Initials and Finals forms the pronunciation of a word. For example:
'n' + 'i' = ni; 'h' + 'ao' = hao
In the above example, 'n' and 'h' are Initials, 'i' and 'ao' are Finals. I strongly recommend you learn the correct Pin Yin from a Mandarin teacher as the letters in the system do not all sound like their English counterparts.
All the Initials are listed as below:
b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s, y, w
All the Finals are listed as below:
a, o, e, i, u, ü, ai, ei, ui, ao, ou, iu, ie, ue, er, an, en, in, un, ün, ang, eng, ing, ong, zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si, yi, wu, yu, ye, yue, yuan, yin, yun, ying
Pin Yin is not complete without tones. There are four tones in Mandarin Chinese, namely the first tone, the second tone, the third tone and the fourth tone.
The first tone (symbol: "ˉ"): high pitch and leveled;
The second tone (symbol: "ˊ"): rising;
The third tone (symbol: "v" ): first falling, then rising;
The fourth tone (symbol: "ˋ"): falling
It is very important to learn tones properly under the guidance of a Mandarin teacher.
The different tones give more varieties of meanings to the same Pin Yin combination. For example: "mā" (with the first tone) means "mother"; "má" (with the second tone) means "linen"; "mǎ" (with the third tone) means "horse"; and "mà" (with the fourth tone) means "to swear".
Now you see how vital it is to get the tones right in order to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.
BBC website has some practice for tones. The link is as below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/games/tones.shtml
There are two areas: 'Learn the Tones' and 'Straight to Play'. Both are very useful. You can listen to the tones in the 'Learn the Tones' section first and then go test yourself in 'Straight to Play' section.
Practice makes perfect. And good luck!
Mandarin (aka Pu Tong Hua) is the standard Chinese language spoken in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also one of the four official languages of Singapore. In addition, millions of overseas Chinese people use Mandarin. Despite the fact that there are 56 nationalities and many local dialects in China, everyone speaks Mandarin Chinese as it is a compulsory subject in primary schools, high schools and even in universities nationally.
Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua) is developed from the Beijing dialect. Although the two share great similarities, they are not exactly the same. News readers on CCTV (China Central Television, the equivalent of BBC in the UK) use Pu Tong Hua, not the Beijing dialect. It is a myth that you have to find a Mandarin teacher who is originally from Beijing. In fact, locals from Beijing still need to learn and practice in order to have decent Pu Tong Hua.
By the way, Cantonese is another popular Chinese dialect (mainly spoken by people in Hong Kong and in Guangdong, China, as well as some overseas Chinese from those areas). It is quite different from Mandarin. With China's rapid economic growth and its rising status on the international arena, even the used-to-be proud Hong Kong people are learning and using Mandarin nowadays.
The point is, if you decide to learn Chinese, I suggest you learn Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua) which is spoken by over 1 billion people in the world.
