Lesson 1 FL - Foreign Language
Lesson 1 FL - Foreign Language
Lesson 1 Pinyin
Key Features of Chinese Language
Chinese is the most widely spoken in the world.
Two most popular forms of Chinese language are:
1. Mandarin is the standard form widely spoken in mainland China.
2. Cantonese is mainly spoken in Taiwan.
Chinese belongs to Sino Tibetan language family
Chinese is a tonal language
The written form of the language is called characters which are basically kind of ideogram, looks
like picture.
There are almost 50,000 characters in Chinese language. But learning 3000 to 4000 characters one
can accomplish daily communication, news paper reading or academic pursuit
Speaking Chinese is like singing a song; the tonal ups and downs add musical effect to the language.
Everybody knows that Chinese is a kind of pictographic language. Each Chinese word is made of
Chinese characters, and each character is monosyllabic and has its own pronunciation.
Chinese people mark the pronunciation of characters in pīn yīn (Chinese phonetic alphabet).
Pinyin, or Hanyu Pinyin, is the official phonetic system for pronouncing Chinese characters. pīnyīn
( 拼音) literally means spelled out sounds.
There are two groups of alphabets in pīn yīn.
One group is used at the beginning of a syllable and are called initials.
The other group follow initials and is called finals.
Initials
b p m f d t n l
g k h j q x
zh ch sh r z c s
y w
Finals
Single Finals
a o e u ü
Compound Finals
a: ai ao an ang
o: ou ong
e: ei en eng
i: ia ie iao iu
in iang ing iong
u: ua uo uai ui
uan un
uang ueng
ü: üe üan ün
Syllables
Initial Sound English Sound Equivalent Chinese Example
b bear 不 bù (not)
p pope 跑 pǎo (to run)
m more 妈 mā (mom)
f fate 分 fēn (cent)
These last two are special sounds because they are not true initial sounds, but sometimes function as initial
sounds.
y yes — yī (one)
(Not a true initial. The letter i is written with a
y when no initial is present.)
w want 我 wǒ (I)
(Not a true initial. The letter o is written with a
w when no initial is present.)
Single Finals
Final Sound English Sound Equivalent Chinese Example
a pronounced as the a in “father” 妈 mā (mom)
e pronounced as the er in “serve” 客 kè (guest)
i pronounced as the ee in “bee” — yī (one)
o pronounced as the o in “fox” 我 wǒ (I)
Compound Finals
Final English Sound Equivalent Chinese Example
Sound
ai bike 来 lái (come)
ao now 好 hǎo (good)
ei may 美 měi (beautiful)
ia y in “yes” and slide to a as in British “are” 下 xià (below)
iao the combination of the beginning consonant in “yes” and the o in 小 xiǎo (small)
“how”
ie similar to the ye in “yes”. 谢 xiè (thanks)
iou/iu iu is always pronounced as iou – pronounced as a slide from “y” as 久 jiǔ (long ago)
in “yes” to the “o” in “go“
ong pronounced “o” is as described above, followed by the nasal “ng” 懂 dǒng (under-
sound stand)
uang/wang The spelling “wang” is used when it stands as an independent 黄 huáng
syllable.
(yellow)