1 · Sounds and characters
Reading pinyin
the official romanisation
Initials, finals, and the handful of letters that do not sound the way English reads them.
Pinyin is the official way of writing the sounds of Mandarin in Latin letters. Every syllable is built the same way: an initial consonant, a final (the vowel part, sometimes with an n or ng after it) and a tone. 妈 is m plus a in the first tone; 爱 has no initial at all. Mandarin has only about four hundred syllables without their tones, so the same few spellings come back again and again. Pinyin is a code for these sounds, not English spelling, and reading it as English is where most bad habits start.
Some letters mean something quite different from English. q is close to the ch of “cheap”, said with the lips spread: 七. x lies between s and sh: 谢谢. j is a light j, as in “jeep”: 九. zh, ch and sh are said with the tongue curled back: 中, 吃, 是; and r sounds somewhere between the English r and the s of “measure”: 热. z is the ds of “reads” and c the ts of “cats”: 在, 菜. h is rougher than in English, close to the ch of Scottish “loch”: 好.
The finals have their own traps. After z, c, s, zh, ch, sh and r the letter i is not an “ee” at all but a buzzing continuation of the consonant: 四 and 是 do not rhyme with 西. The letter ü is the French u or German ü: lips rounded, tongue as for “ee”. After j, q, x and y it is written without its dots, because no plain u can follow those letters: 去, 学 and 鱼 all have ü. After n and l the dots stay, because lu and lü are both syllables: 路, road, and 绿, green. The e of 喝 is a vowel English does not have, said far back in the mouth with unrounded lips; but in ie, üe and ian it is the e of “yes”: 谢, 天.
English speakers usually stumble over three things. They read q as k and x as ks; they hear b, d, g and p, t, k as voiced against voiceless, when the real difference is a puff of air after p, t, k; and they say zhi and si as jee and see. None of this can be guessed from the letters. Learn each initial and final once, by ear, and from then on pinyin is an exact guide to how every word on this site sounds.
The form
| q, j, x: tongue flat, lips spread | 七、九、洗 |
| zh, ch, sh, r: tongue curled back | 中、吃、是、热 |
| z, c, s: like ds, ts, s | 在、菜、四 |
| ü written u after j, q, x, y | 去、鱼、学 |
| ü keeps its dots after n and l | 女、绿 |
| an apostrophe before a, o, e inside a word | 西安、可爱 |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
The letters q, j and x are said with the tongue flat behind the lower teeth and the lips spread, never like English q or x.
我有七个小本子。I have seven small notebooks.
After z, c, s, zh, ch, sh and r the letter i is not an “ee”: it stretches the buzz of the consonant.
我吃了四个包子。I ate four steamed buns.
After j, q, x and y the letter u is really ü, and the dots are left off because no other u can stand there.
我明天去学校。I am going to school tomorrow.
After n and l the dots stay, because lu and lü are two different syllables.
这条路上有很多绿树。There are a lot of green trees along this road.
B, d and g are not voiced as in English: they differ from p, t and k only by the puff of air that follows p, t and k.
爸爸喜欢跑步。Dad likes running.
A closer look
Why yi, wu and yu are spelled with y and w
A syllable with no initial consonant is spelled with a y or w in front of it: i becomes yi, ie becomes ye, u becomes wu, uo becomes wo, and ü becomes yu, üe becomes yue. Nothing extra is pronounced. The letters are there because pinyin writes a word as one block, and the reader has to see where one syllable stops and the next begins: 一月 is yī plus yuè, not a jumble of vowels.
Three finals are also shortened after an initial. iou is written iu, uei is written ui and uen is written un, yet the hidden vowel is still faintly heard: 六sounds close to li-ou对close to du-ei If a word sounds slightly fuller than its spelling, this is usually why.
How to spot it
- 七
- 西
- 是
- 去
- 女
Example sentences
谢谢你！Thank you!
她是中国人。She is Chinese.
请喝茶。Please have some tea.
我想去西安。I would like to go to Xi'an.
他有一个女儿。He has a daughter.
这是我的自行车。This is my bicycle.
8 more example sentences
早上好！Good morning!
我在学中文。I am learning Chinese.
这是四，那是十。This is four, and that is ten.
她买了一条绿裙子。She bought a green skirt.
今天很热。It is hot today.
兔子不吃肉。Rabbits don't eat meat.
我的家在北京。My home is in Beijing.
请你再说一遍。Please say it again.
Worth knowing (2)
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The apostrophe
Pinyin writes a word as one block, so a syllable beginning with a, o or e would run into the one before it. An apostrophe marks the join: 西安 is two syllables, the city, while xian without it would be read as one. You will meet it in 女儿 and 可爱 too.
熊猫很可爱。Pandas are very cute.
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Capital letters
Names of people and places begin with a capital letter, as do the names of countries and languages. Everything else is written in small letters on this site, even at the start of a sentence, because the pinyin follows the words and not the sentence.
王明住在上海。Wang Ming lives in Shanghai.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
English has no sound between s and sh, so x and sh easily blur into one. They are two different initials, and here they make two different words: 小means small少means few or little “My money is small” is not what you meant; “I have little money” needs shǎo.
Read pinyin as a code for Mandarin sounds, not as English spelling: q, x, zh, c and ü each mean something of their own.
Your turn
9 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.