What is pinyin?
Mandarin characters don’t tell you how to pronounce a word.
They are more like pictures that represent an object or an idea.
Pinyin was invented to help those learning Mandarin with pronunciation - Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. pīn yīn literally translates to ‘spell sound’.
For example it is impossible to tell, from looking at it, how the Mandarin character for mountain 山 is pronounced, so we use the pinyin 蝉丑ā苍 to give its sound - Check your connection, refresh the page and try again..
How is Pinyin formed?
Pinyin uses all the same letters of the alphabet as English, except for 'v', to form:
Here are some examples:
Mandarin | Pinyin | English |
---|---|---|
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. | 办ā颈 | open |
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. | 谤é苍 | man |
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. | 蝉丑耻ǐ | water |
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. | 尘ù | wood |
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. | ma | a question particle |
The marks over the letters indicate which tone is used in the pronunciation, helping to make it clear which word you are saying.
Did you know?
Some words with different characters and different meanings are written exactly the same in pinyin.
For example:
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. shǒu shì - gesture
Check your connection, refresh the page and try again. shǒu shì - jewellery
These are called homophones.
Differences between pinyin and English
Pinyin was not created for English speakers, so whilst there are similarities, there are also important differences:
some pinyin sounds don’t exist in English
some pinyin is pronounced differently than English
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