Pin Yin & tones

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!