Chinese — Pinyin

1. Chinese —Pinyin Adapted from a presentation by Haiwang Yuan Associate Professor, University Libraries Adjunct Instructor, Department of Modern Languages

2. Hanyu Pinyin (Chinese Phonetics) • Pinyin (拼音), literally “spell the sound,” is the standard romanization scheme for Chinese characters (汉字) • Adopted in 1958 by mainland China • Used by all major world media and Chinese schools • Beginning from October 1, 2000, the Library of Congress and other U.S. libraries joined the international community in using Pinyin to catalog their Chinese materials

3. Why Pinyin? • A pronunciation tool for domestic and foreign learners of Chinese which, unlike many other languages in the world, is a non-alphabet language • Assist in popularizing standard Chinese, known as Putonghua or Mandarin, among Chinese who speak a variety of dialects, such as Cantonese • Index tool, such as library catalogs and dictionaries • One method for Computer input of Chinese characters • Standardized translation of Chinese names in the non-Chinese media (e.g. Beijing for 北京；Haiwang Yuan for 袁海旺）

4. Why Pinyin (continued) • Before Pinyin, there was the Zhuyin system:ㄣㄆㄇㄈㄌㄊㄋㄞ used to indicate the pronunciation • More difficult to learn than b p m f d t n l, which are familiar to foreign learners, but avoids the pronunciation pitfalls inherent in Pinyin. • Zhuyin is still used in Taiwan, though Pinyin is now increasingly found alongside Zhuyin in textbooks • Pinyin, though not perfect (e.g. j, q, x), is widely accepted. It has become essential to learning and using Chinese

5. Learning Pinyin • Each Chinese character is a single syllable • A syllable has three components: • Initial (consonant): b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, z, c, s, zh, ch, sh • Final (vowel) that usually follows the initials: a, o, e, i, u, ü (simple) or eng, ong, ing, etc. (compound) • Tone (four distinct and one neutral) • Chinese has around 400 syllables; tones serve to multiply the number of possible pronunciations • More homophonic words - words having the same sound but expressing different meanings • Traditionally, Pinyin has 21 initials and 35 finals

6. 23 initials Learning Pinyin - Initials

7. 24 finals (vowels): Learning Pinyin - Finals

8. Pinyin Table 1

9. Pinyin Table 2

10. Pinyin Table 3

11. Learning Pinyin - Tones • The first tone “–” : At the doctor’s request, say “ah….” • The second tone “/”: Express your disbelief and say “What?” • The Third tone “v” : When waiting for an answer, say “Well?” • The fourth tone “\” : Reject somebody’s request and say categorically “No!” • The neutral tone: Where the voice naturally goes, as in the second part of “ge1ge”.

12. Practice Mother is riding a horse; the horse is slow; Mother curses the horse. , ,

13. Pronunciation Exercises • Part One • Listen carefully and circle the word that you hear. • 1. Single Words: Initials • 2. Single Words: Finals • 3. Single Words: Tones (1, 4) • 4. Single Words: Tones (2, 3) • 5. Single Words: Tones (all) • 6. Single Words: Everything • 7. Tone Combinations

14. Pronunciation Exercises • Part Two • Listen carefully and write in the sounds that you hear. • 1. Initials and Simple Finals • 2. Tones • 3. Compound Finals • 4. Neutral Tones • 5. Monosyllabic Words • 6. Bisyllabic Words • 7. Combinations

15. Further Information and Practice • There are a number of websites to help you learn and practice Chinese pronunciation and tones: www.shufawest.us/language/tonedrill.html www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~pinyin/ www.pinyinpractice.com/tones.htm www.pinyinpractice.com/initials.htm www.pinyinpractice.com/finals.htm www.chinese-outpost.com/language/pronunciation/