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Essential Mandarin Pronunciation Tutorial

Introduction

Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin, is the official phonetic notation of romanization system for Mandarin. It is always used as a tool to learn the accurate pronunciation of Chinese words in Mandarin, and it is one of the most widely used computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. Besides that, Pinyin is also one of the ways to look for words in Chinese dictionary.

Pinyin is not an anglicization, it does not use the same pronunciation as the English conventions. Therefore, it contains some pronunciations that do not exist in English.

Pinyin usually consists of three elements: a tone, an initial and a final. The initial and final are mostly combined together to form a Chinese syllable, with a tone marked on top of a vowel to indicate the pitch of the syllable.

Initials & Finals

Initials

Initials are consonants or compound consonants. There are 23 initials and 14 among them sound similar to their English equivalents - b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, w and y. The others are: c, j, q, r, x, z, ch, sh and zh.

Pinyin initials do not keep the same order as the English alphabetical order does. They are ordered and grouped by the characteristic of pinyin pronunciation, and it is useful to understand and remember the order of the initials for new learners to master pinyin.

b p m f d t n l g k h j q x zh ch sh r z c s y w
            Sounds similar to the English equivalents, and the easiest to learn.
            Do not have English equivalent apart from s, but they all sound similar to each other within the group.
            Used as orthographic convention.
b p m f d t n l g k h
            Sounds similar to the English equivalents, and the easiest to learn.
j q x zh ch sh r z c s y w
            Do not have English equivalent apart from s, but they all sound similar to each other within the group.
            Used as orthographic convention.

Subdivide each group (i.e. red, green, blue) above further helps to understand how to pronunce each initial easily and accurately based on their characteristic and similarity.

Labial Alveolar Velar
b d g unaspirated
p t k aspirated
m n h
f l
unaspirated vs. aspirated

These 11 initials from the table above have a very similar pronunciation to their English equivalents. However, there are 3 pairs among them may sound confusing, and difficult to distinguish.

Initials p, t and k are aspirated, which means the pronunciation always accompanies with a strong burst of breath exhaled, and both p and t have a stronger aspirated than k. On the other hand, b, d and g are unaspirated.

  • b vs. p
    • b sounds like an unaspirated P in English.
    • p sounds like a strongly aspirated P in English.
  • d vs. t
    • d sounds like an unaspirated T in English.
    • t sounds like a strongly aspirated T in English.
  • g vs. k
    • g sounds like an unaspirated K in English.
    • k sounds like a strongly aspirated K in English.
the easy initials

The following initials sound the same like the English equivalents.

  • m
  • f
  • n
  • l
  • h
Alveolo-palatal Retroflex Alveolar
j zh z
q ch c
x sh s
r
alveolar vs. retroflex

Initials zh, ch and sh are retroflex pronunciation, where tongue has a curled shape and is kept between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate when pronunce it. Initials z, c and s sound very similar to zh, ch and sh, but the difference is to keep the tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge.

  • z vs. zh
    • z sounds approximately like suds in English.
    • zh is the retroflex version of z.
  • c vs. ch
    • c sounds approximately like cuts in English, but strongly aspirated.
    • ch is the retroflex version of c, it sounds approximately like chin in English, but strongly aspirated.
  • s vs. sh
    • s sounds the same like S in English.
    • sh is the retroflex version of s, it sounds approximately like shirt in English.
  • r
    • r sounds approximately like R in English, but strongly retroflexed.
the unique initials

Initials j,q and x may sound similar to initials zh, ch and sh, some others may think these sound very close to initials z, c and s. However we must stress that, they do not. These initials have no English equivalents, you need to learn them from scratch.

  • j
    • j sounds approximately like jeep in English, but gently aspirated and relax your tongue down below your lower front teeth.
  • q
    • q sounds approximately like cheese in English, but gently aspirated and relax your tongue down below your lower front teeth.
  • x
    • x sounds approximately like see in English, but gently aspirated.
Semivowel
y
w
the unofficial initials

The initials y and w are not part of the official pinyin system, they are orthographic convention for i, u and ü when no initial is presented. This is because pinyin does not differentiate between yi, wu, yü and i, u, ü. Include these 2 semivowels into the system not only help to simplify the pinyin rules, but also make more sense for non-native speakers to learn the pronunciation of initials y and w when they are used with other finals.

  • y
  • w

Finals

Finals are vowels or compound vowels. There are 35 finals include 6 single finals (a, o, e, i, u, ü) and 29 compound finals (ao, ai, an, ang, ou, ong, ei, en, eng, er, ia, iao, ian, iang, iong, ie, iu, in, ing, ua, uai, uan, uang, uo, ui, un, üan, üe, ün).

a o e i u ü n ng r
a a ao ai an ang
o o ou ong
e e ei en eng er
i ia ie i iu in ing
ia iao ian iang
io iong
u ua uo ui u un
ua uai uan uang
ü üe ü ün
üa üan
single finals

Pronunciation of finals a, o, e, i and u are as simple as their English equivalents, and ü is just as simple with a simple trick.

  • a , o , e , i , u
  • ü
    • While pronunce the final i, shape your lip as how you pronunce the final u.
compound finals

Compound finals is easy to pronunce once someone has mastered the 6 simple finals pronunciation as described above, because they are just a combined pronunciation from two or more of those simple finals, and pronunce it as quickly as into a single voice. Such as ai is the combination of a + i, while uai is the combination of u + ai. There are some additional and exceptional cases, and are listed below:

  • n vs. ng
    • an vs. ang
    • en vs. eng
    • in vs. ing
  • the unofficial variants
    • e - This is not officially stated, but the pronunciation is changed whenever an e appears in the compound final üe (e.g. lüe, nüe, qüe and etc.) or ie (e.g. bie, jie, xie and etc.) and ye (Remember Pinyin does not differentiate between i and yi).
    • an - The pronunciation of final a is changed when it appears in the compound final ian (e.g. dian, qian, tian and etc.) or üan (e.g. jüan, qüan, xüan and etc.).

Tones

Mandarin is a tonal language, it affects the meaning of each words said with different tones. There are four basic tones, include high-level, rising, falling-rising, falling, which are indicated respectively by pitch markers (i.e. -, /, v, \) that placed on top of a vowel (e.g. mā, má, mǎ, mà). There is also a fifth neutral tone in Mandarin that pronounced very weakly, and is without the pitch marker (e.g. ma).

Relative pitch changes of the four tones in Pinyin

See also

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