Page 16 - Mandarin Circle

TOPIC 1: PINYIN & TONES

Does Chinese language have an alphabet? The answer is yes and no. Chinese
is a character-based language which correspond to its PinYin

1.1 Pinyin is used for writing out the pronunciation and tone of any given
character. Each character corresponds to one syllable of Pinyin.

Eg: The chinese word “你好” (hello) is formed by combining two characters

“你” nĭ (you) and “好” hăo（good）together.

1.2 Vowels and Consonants

Learning Pinyin will help lay the foundation for pronunciation. Chinese Pinyin consists
of initial consonants (b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s, r, zh, ch, sh) and finals
or compound vowels (a, o, e, i, u etc.).

1.2.1 Single Vowels in Mandarin :

a o e i u ü

Single Vowels with four tones

ā á ǎ à

ō ó ǒ ò

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