Chinese Pronunciation E-Book

Hani Mohammadi

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Many language learners start by memorizing phrases and words. This is good if you just want to order a drink or greet your Chinese friend. But to master Mandarin Chinese language you need to learn the most accurate way to pronounce each syllables.

Learning pronunciation is essential for learning this language. In this book you are going to be master in Mandarin Chinese Pronunciation.

Leseprobe

Hani Mohammadi

Chinese Pronunciation

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Pinyin

Chinese Pronunciation

Introduction to Pinyin

Chinese language is much different from English and other European languages which makes its pronunciation even harder to learn.

丽

吃

美

眼

肉

Chinese is written by Chinese characters which are not directly related to their pronunciation. So in Chinese use Pinyin 拼音to teach Chinese language. Pinyin literally means ”spell sound” and is romanization system of Chinese characters base on their pronunciation.

丽

lì

吃

chī

美

měi

眼

yǎn

肉

ròu

Pinyin use English alphabet but not 26 letters. It uses 25 and instead of “v” it has “ü”.

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

q

r

s

t

u

ü

w

x

y

z

Even it use English letters but it doesn’t mean all letters sound like English. For example, “q” sound like “ch” or “x” sound like “sh”.

There are totally 409 sounds and if you master them, you can pronounce all Chinese characters.

Initial, Final and Tone

Every Chinese syllables is composed of an initial, a final and a tone.

Initials are like consonants. Most of them are located at the beginning of syllable so they are called initial. Finals are same as vowel sounds. They are usually located in the middle or at the end of syllable, so they are classed as final.

Combination of 21 initials and 36 finals create 409 sounds. That is all Chinese sounds without tones.

For example word “ma” is composed of initial “m” and final “a” and has second tone.

Sometimes there is no initials like “ai”

and sometimes there is no tone like “ma”.

In pinyin chart you can see all 21 initials and 36 finals without their tone. This chart also shows how initials and finals combines.

Pinyin Tone Mark Rules

Tone marks always go over finals, not initials.

If a syllable has three finals, the tone mark is over the second final.

Examples: kuài, huán, iáo, uái

If a syllable has two finals and no initial, the tone mark is placed over the first final.

Examples: ái, áo, ōu, ài

Unless the first final is "i" or "u" or "ü" then tone mark will be over second final.

Examples: iá, ié, ió, ué, üé

note that when tone mark is over "i", the dot is omitted.

Example: guì