Introduction of Chinese Pinyin Tones

Introduction of Chinese Pinyin Tones

Tones are an important part of Chinese, which are the variation of pitch within a syllable and are used to distinguish words with same Pinyin. There are basiclly four tones and one neutral tone in Mandarin Chinese. The following chart illustates the four basic tones.

Basic Four Tone Marks

Tones Tone Marks Descriptons Examples
1st tone 阴平 high level dā 耷(drop down)
2nd tone 阳平 high rising dá 答(answer)
3rd tone 上声 low dipping dǎ 打(hit)
4th tone 去声 high falling dà 大(big)

The neutral tone, occurs on stressless syllables and has a pitch entirely determined by the tones of adjacent syllables. However, a neutral will never act as the starting tone. Neutral tones are usually unmarked. For example, the red parts of the following table are neutral tones.

māma 妈妈 yéye 爷爷 nǎinai 奶奶 bàba 爸爸
gēge 哥哥 wáwa 娃娃 jiějie 姐姐 mèimei 妹妹
zhuōzi 桌子 fángzi 房子 běnzi 本子 jìngzi 镜子
jīnzi 金子 yínzi 银子 zǎoshang 早上 dìshang 地上
dīngzi 钉子 miánhua 棉花 yǐngzi 影子 yànzi 燕子

Tone Mark Placement

The tone mark is placed over the vowel if there is only one vowel letter.

bù nà tè

If there are two vowels, the tone mark is placed on the first, unless the this first vowel is i or u.

kǎi hēi qiú tuī

If there are three vowels in a syllable, the tone mark is placed on the middle one.

qióng zhuāng chuán

When the tone mark is place on i, the small dot is removed.

yí lín huī

Learn more about Chinese tone on Hello! Mandarin

Introduction of Chinese pinyin

Chinese Pinyin Introduction

Pinyin, short for Hanyu Pinyin, which means "phonetic notation" or "phonetic symbols" while Pin means "spell(ing)" and Yin means "sound(s)"), is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1912) and Postal System Pinyin, and replaced zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland China.

Since then, Pinyin has been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and most international institutions as the preferred transcription system for Mandarin. In 1979 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese (ISO-7098:1991).

Pinyin is a romanization and not an anglicization; that is, it uses Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin Chinese. The way these letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin Chinese will differ from how other languages that use the Roman alphabet represent sound. For example, the sounds indicated in Pinyin by b and p are distinguished from each other (by aspiration) in a manner different from that of both English (which has voicing and aspiration) and of French (which has voicing alone). Other letters, like j, q, x or zh indicate sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in Pinyin such as the ang ending, do not correspond to English pronunciations, either. Pinyin has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers.

When learning Chinese Pinyin, you shall be aware of certain limitations:

Pinyin does not represent English pronunciation and should not be pronounced according to English conventions. You are advised to learn Pinyin phonetic conventions, bearing in mind that many sounds have no equivalents in Englishss.
Since Pinyin is based only on the sounds of Mandarin Chinese, Pinyin is unsuitable for use for speakers of some other Chinese spoken dialects, because the sounds do not correspond to their speech.
The phonotactics of spoken Mandarin Chinese dictate a relatively small set of possible syllables and there is a potential for homonyms. Because of this, Pinyin can be ambiguous, especially when transcribing Standard Written Chinese, which uses formal constructions not often found in speech. However, this should not be an issue in the transcription of normal spoken Mandarin conversation since speakers would not use such ambiguous constructions in speech.

Learn more about Chinese pinyin on Hello! Mandarin

Sing a Chinese song--Everyday in my life, sang by Jackie Chen

Learn Chinese, sing Chinese song:

在我生命中的每一天
zài wǒ shēng mìng zhōng de měi yī tiān

Tarcy:
kàn shí guāng fēi shì
wǒ qí dǎo míng tiān
měi gè xiǎo xiǎo mèng xiǎng néng gòu màn màn shí xiàn
wǒ shì rú cǐ píng fán què yòu rú cǐ xìng yùn
wǒ yào shuō shēng xiè xiè nǐ
zài wǒ shēng mìng zhōng de měi yī tiān

Jackie:
kàn shí guāng fēi shì
wǒ huí shǒu cóng qián
céng jīng shì mǎng zhuàng shǎo nián
céng jīng dù rì rú nián
wǒ shì rú cǐ píng fán què yòu rú cǐ xìng yùn
wǒ yào shuō shēng xiè xiè nǐ
zài wǒ shēng mìng zhōng de měi yī tiān

Jackie:
ràng wǒ jiāng shēng mìng zhōng zuì shǎn liàng de nà yī duàn yǔ nǐ fēn xiǎng
Tarcy:
ràng wǒ yòng shēng mìng zhōng zuì liáo liàng de gē shēng lái péi bàn nǐ
Jackie:
ràng wǒ jiāng xīn zhōng zuì wēn róu de bù fēn gěi nǐ
zài nǐ zuì xū yào péng yǒu de shí hòu
Tarcy:
ràng wǒ zhēn xīn zhēn yì duì nǐ zài měi yī tiān

Together:
ràng wǒ zhēn xīn zhēn yì duì nǐ zài měi yī tiān

Learn Chinese on Hello! Mandarin: private class, 24/7, free materials, online library, practice partner.

Basic Chinese Sentence Rules

Basic Chinese Sentence Rules:

Sentence Type - 句子的种类

1). Based on the mood, a sentence can be a declarative sentence, an interrogative sentence, an imperative sentence or an interjectional sentence.

a. Declarative Ssentence - 陈述句
eg. 明天是除夕.
eg. 现在停电了.

b. Interrogative Sentence - 疑问句
eg. 今天是星期几?
eg. 你去吗?

c. Imperative Sentence - 祈使句
eg. 快点!
eg. 请安静!

d. Interjectional Sentence - 感叹句
eg. 这个广场好大啊!
eg. 这幅画真漂亮!

Learn Chinese on Hello! Mandarin: private class, 24/7, free materials, practice partner, online library

Basic Chinese Pinyin Rules

Basic Chinese Pinyin Rules

1. Usage of y and w

When there is no intials before finals starting with i, y shall be added as initial. If there is other vowels after i, i shall be changed to y. For example:
ia - ya ie -ye iao -yao
iou -you ian -yan iang -yang
iong -yong

If no vowels after i, just y before i. For example:
i - yi in -yin ing -ying


When there is no intials before finals starting with u, w shall be added as initial. If there is other vowels after u, u shall be changed to w. For example:
ua - wa uo -wo uai -wai
uei - wei uan - wan uen - wen
uang - wang ueng - weng

If no vowels after u, just w before u. For example:
u - wu


When there is no intials before finals starting with ü, y shall be added as initial no matter if there is vowels after ü. When y added, ü is changed to u. For example:
ü - yu üe - yue üan - yuan
ün -yun

2. Usage of ’ mark

When syllables starting with a, o, e follow other syllables and may make confusions, ’ mark is used to seperate them. For example:
piao 票 jiang 讲 min ge 民革 xian 先
pi ’ao 皮袄 ji ’ang 激昂 ming ’e 名额 xi ’an 西安

3. Abbreviations

Abbreviations of iou, uei and uen
When there is initials before iou, uei and uen, they are abbraviated as iu, ui and un. For Example:
niou - niu guei - gui luen -lun
If no initials proceed, then they still abide by the rules of usage of y and w shown above.

When initials other than n and l proceed finals ü starting with, ü changes to u.
nü - nü lü - lü jü - ju qü - qu

When uo follows initials b, p, m, or f, u is dropped, resulting in bo, po, mo, or fo.
buo - bo puo - po muo -mo fuo - fo

The final er can follow other finals to form retroflection. In the follow case, er is abbraviated as r.
When er is attached as suffix to finals a, o, e u, -ng. For example:
bar 把儿 mor 沫儿 ger 歌儿 shur 数儿 rangr 瓤儿

When er is attached as suffix to finals ai, an, en, drop the final letter and er is abbraviated as r. For example:
hair 孩儿 bianr 边儿 pianr 片儿

When er is attached as suffix to finals i and ü, er is shorted as r.
pir 皮儿 qir 旗儿 qur 曲儿

When er is attached as suffix to finals -i, in, and un, the final letter is dropped.
sher 事儿

Learn More about Chinese pinyin, conversation on Hello! Mandarin.

Advantages of Learning Chinese Online

In this article I am going to explain to you the advantages of learning a foreign language online as opposed to in a local class.

ADVANTAGE 1- PRICE- Taking a course near you can cost you hundreds of dollars that will soon be wasted. With a course online, you can spend a fraction of that price for triple times the education value.

ADVANTAGE 2- ACCENTS- With most local classes, you will be stuck with a teacher that can barely even speak English. How can you trust them to teach you to speak Mandarin Chinese? With an online course, mostly everything is written, so you can understand every word easily.

ADVANTAGE 2- 24/7 ACCESS- With a local class, learning begins when you walk in the door, and ends when you leave. With an online course, you will have the information forever and be able to study at any time that you would like.

ADVANTAGE 4- BIG CLASSES- In most classes, you will be stuck with at least fifteen students, and one teacher. Each student may have a different question, which makes it impossible to meet your individual needs. If you are learning over the computer, all of the information is laid out perfectly so you will not have to ask any questions.

Choosing your online course can also make the difference in your education. If you would like to learn about the #1 recommended product for learning to speak Mandarin Chinese online, click on the link below.

www.hellomandarin.com

Chinese Words

Chinese Words:

Dà tóng xiǎo yì

【 大 同 小 异 】

Almost the same; alike except for slight differences



Dà xiǎn shén tōng

【 大 显 神 通 】

To display one's remarkable skill; give full display to one's brilliant abilities



Xiǎo tí dà zuò

【 小 题 大 作 】

To kick up a fuss over a trivial matter; to make a mountain out of a molehill



Xiǎo ēn xiǎo huì

【 小 恩 小 惠 】

Petty favors; small favors

Learn more Chinese words on Hello! Mandarin.