Introduction to PinYin

Miss Chiang

History

• Romanization has been around for a long time to make Chinese language more accessible to foreigners.

• Many different methods, such as Wade-Giles, Yale, etc.

• PinYin– Introduced in 1958.– developed by People’s Republic of

China, – most popular method today.

http://qi-journal.com/culture.asp?-token.SearchID=Mandarin

PinYin Symbols Overview

• Initials– Similar to Consonant.

• Finals– Similar to vowels.

Pinyin 1: Initials

b p m f

d t n l

g k h

j q x

zh ch sh r

z c s

Pinyin 2: Simple Finals

i u ü

a o e ê

PinYin 3: Compound Finals

ai ei ao ou

an en ang eng ong=ueng

ia iao ie Iu=iou

ian in iang ing iong

ua uo uai ui=uei

uan un=uen uang ueng

ü e ü an ü n

er

Spelling Rules

1. If there is no initial consonant before i & ü, they are written as yi & yu .

2. If there is no initial consonant before u, it is written as wu.

3. ueng is written as ong.

4. An apostrophe is used to separate two syllables with connecting vowels, e.g. shi’er (12).

http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm

Tones

• Chinese is a sound-poor language, about 400 sounds.

• Every Chinese syllable has a tone. Each character corresponds to a single syllable.

• There are 4 main tones.• There is also a neutral tone.

http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm

Tone Marks

First — Singing Tone “C”

Second ∕ Question Tone “What?”

Third √ Dipping, hesitating

“Well….”

Fourth \ Assertive, short “GO!” “NO!!”

Neutral None Light sound

http://www.romanization.com/pinyintonemarks/index.html

Where do the Tone Marks go?

• a and e trump all other vowels and always take the tone mark. There are no Mandarin syllables that contain both a and e.

• In the combination ou, o takes the mark.

• In all other cases, the final vowel takes the mark.

Resources

• Online Pinyin help: ChineseOn.net.• Pinyin Practice: tones, initials & finals.• Romanization Conversion Tool:

Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale.• Romanization comparison chart.• Tone Drill.• Harvard Chinese Pronunciation

Guide.