Pinyin is a simple and established method to represent the tones and pronunciations of Chinese characters using the Roman alphabet. Once you learn Pinyin, you will know how to pronounce any word in Mandarin, the most commonly spoken Chinese dialect. While Pinyin uses the same letters as English, some letters have retained their English sounds, but many letters have adopted different sounds.

Each Chinese character has only one syllable. Pinyin breaks down each word into two parts, an initial and a final. The initial represents the beginning of the word and uses a set of 21 sounds. These letters can be compared to the way consonants are used in English. There are a set of 37 sounds representing the finals. Finals can be compared to the way vowels are used in English. In total, these can combine to form roughly 420 sounds.

In addition, words in Mandarin that have the same pronunciation can have different meanings depending on what tone is used. There are four tones in Mandarin, corresponding to the pitches and changes in pitch one has to assume in pronouncing a word. [or any other reworking of the second clause so that the pronoun ‘it’, which lack a matching antecedent, is eliminated.] The absence of a tone also has meaning. The tones on this website are represented with numbers.

Initials

b	p	m	f
d	t	n	l
g	k	h
j	q	x
z	c	s
zh	ch	sh	r

These initials have the same pronunciation as in English
o M—as in “man”
o N—as in “no”
o L—as in “love”
o F—as in “for”
o S—as in “sew”
o Y—as in “yes”
o Z—like “ds” in “beds”

These initials have slight differences as noted below. If the sound needs to be aspirated, one good way to tell if you are pronouncing it right is to hold your palm a few inches from your mouth and feel for the breath as you pronounce the letter.

o P—as in “poor” (aspirated)
o K—as in “cool” (aspirated)
o T—as in “took” (aspirated)
o B—as in “boy” (not aspirated)
o D—as in “dove” (not aspirated)
o G—as in “good” (not aspirated)
o H—as in “hot” (not aspirated)

These initials are considered to be the more difficult sounds to pronounce, with no real equivalent in English.

Zh—as in “jeweler”, but with teeth clenched and tongue up to the roof of the mouth
Ch—as in Zh above, but with a stronger puff of breath, like in “chirps”
Sh—as in “shoe”
R—as in “run”
C—like the “ts” in “its”, but with a strong puff of breath
J—as in “joy”
Q—like the “chee” in “cheese”
X—like the “shee” in “sheep”

Finals

Finals resemble vowel combinations in English. There are single finals and compound finals. There are six simple finals represented by a blue link.

a

o

e

ai

ei

ao

ou

an

en

ang

eng

ong

er

i

ia

ie

iao

iou

ian

in

iang

ieng

iong

u

ua

uo

uai

uei

uan

uen

uang

ueng

yu

yue

yuan

yun

A—as in “father”
O—like the “o” in “or”
E—like the “u” in “ugly”
Ai—as in “by”
Ei—like the “ey” in “hey”
Ao—as in “ow”
Ou—like the “ow” in “low”
An—like the “ohn” of “John”
En—like “un” in “under”
Eng—like the “ung” of “lung”
Ong—like the “ung” of “jungle” but with a “oo” sound
Er—like the “er” in “her”
I—like the “ee” in “feed”
U—like the “oo” “food”
Yu—like the “y” in “yup” but with a slight “ee” sound

Tones

Tone Word with Tone Description of Tone Meaning of Word

1 Ma1 Word said flat and unchanging high tone Mother
2 Ma2 Word said in a rising tone To bother
3 Ma3 Word said first with a falling tone and then a rising tone Horse
4 Ma4 Word said with a quick falling tone To scold
Neutral Ma5 Word said in a short manner and no emphasis Used to indicate a question