Learn Chinese

Learn Pinyin

Before you even think about learning Chinese characters or learning to speak Chinese, you need to learn Chinese Pinyin. Trust me when I say that learning Chinese Pinyin is absolutely crucial for you to get the right start when learning Chinese Mandarin.

What is Pinyin

If you’re wondering what does Pinyin mean, well I honestly don’t blame you. Chinese Pinyin is the most common and widely used ‘Romanization’ of standard Chinese Mandarin. Pinyin actually translates to ’spelled sound’ in Chinese – and that’s exactly what it means. What is the purpose or use of Pinyin you wonder? It is used to teach Mandarin chinese to school children in China, and also to foreigners who want to learn Chinese as a second language or perhaps even a third language.

In most other languages you don’t need to learn a wide amount of different sounds just to get started, so I can understand your frustration. At the beginning when I was learning Chinese, I decided to skim over this part and thought that I would do just fine. That ended up being a huge mistake and cost me alot of time in my efforts to speak and understand Chinese.

How to Learn Pinyin

Ok, hopefully now that you’ve committed yourself to learning Pinyin sounds, let me tell you exactly how you can learn Pinyin. I’m not going to bore you with all the boring details, and the history, and the super detailed explanation that only language freaks would care to read, if that’s what you’re looking for then you can head over to read it at Wikipedia. Instead, I’m going to be much more practical and tell you that you need to learn 420 sounds. Yes that’s how many different Pinyin sounds there are approximately. Before you start freaking out over this number, let me tell you that it really isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Most sounds start with a consonant and are followed by a vowel and sometimes a third or fourth vowel/consonant. The chart below summarizes all these sounds. So every single character in the Chinese language is formed by one of these sounds, words are formed by one or multiple of these sounds, and phrases with a bunch of these sounds put together.

 

You’re probably looking at that list and wondering how to pronounce the pinyin sounds. In fact it is very similar to how we would read them in English, but not exactly. When learning Chinese you need to make sure to learn how to pronounce correctly or else people will have difficulty understanding you. This is true of all languages but especially important for learning Chinese.

The easiest and best way to learn to pronounce Chinese characters is through a site called Chinese Pod. They teach Chinese through podcasts but also have a section where they provide free resources for beginners of Chinese. You can go sign up for free and access their Chinese Pinyin pronounciation section. It is definitely worth it to sign up for free, as you access this incredible software where a mother tongue Chinese will pronounce every single one of these sounds for you just so you get it right. Click this link and do that immediately, it’s no extra cost to you and a resource which you can’t do without.

Tips for learning Pinyin

Ok so if you’re initially overwhelmed by all these new sounds and have no idea how to memorize them all, don’t stress too much. Everyone at the beginning needs some tips, tricks, and methods of memorizing the Pinyin sounds. No one expects you to learn every single sound in the Chinese language overnight, make sure to remember that.

The first priority is to know the kind of sounds in the Mandarin language. After looking at the list, you should have a pretty straight forward idea on at least what Chinese ’sounds like’. After this basic discovery of the phonetic side of the Chinese language, you should spend couple of hours going through the whole list and pronouncing them one by one after hearing the Chinese native person pronounce it. Then you should do it a second time around but this time pronounce it before the Chinese person and then click on the sound only to verify that you’re correct. After you’ve spent couple of hours in this area, don’t worry too much whether you pronounce each single Mandarin Pinyin sounds correctly. Alot of the Pinyin sounds will start to come to you naturally as you spend time learning words, writing characters, and practicing speaking Chinese.

Learning Chinese pinyin will have lots of benefits for you besides learning to pronounce Chinese correctly. It is also the method used for inputting text into computers or mobile phones in order to write the Chinese characters. Follow the tips above, and you will be pronouncing Pinyin like a local Chinese and be ready to learn Chinese vocabulary and Chinese grammar in no time.