LESSON NOTES

Ultimate Chinese Pronunciation

Guide S1 #1
Introduction to Perfect Chinese
Pronunciation

CONTENTS

2 Vocabulary
2 Sample Sentences
4 Grammar

# 1
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VOCABULARY

Simplified Traditional Pinyin English Class

绿 綠 lǜ green adjective

冷 冷 lěng cold adjective

你好 你好 nǐhǎo hello phrase

⽉ ⽉ yuè month noun

⽯ ⽯ shí stone noun

晴 晴 qíng clear adjective

早餐 早餐 zǎocān breakfast noun

北京 北京 Běijīng Beijing proper noun

哪⼉ 哪兒 nǎr where pronoun

⾁ ⾁ ròu meat noun

楼 樓 lóu building noun

personal
他 他 tā he/him pronoun

钱 錢 qián money noun

⼩ ⼩ xiǎo little, small adjective

日 日 rì day noun

Chinese
中⽂ 中⽂ Zhōngwén (language) noun

玉 玉 yù jade noun

长 ⻑ cháng long adjective

累 累 lèi tired adjective

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SAMPLE SENTENCES

今天很冷，你得多穿点⾐服。 北京的冬天很冷。
Jīntiān hěn lěng, nǐ de duō chuān diǎn yīfu. Běijīng de dōngtiān hěn lěng.

Today is cold; you should wear more Beijing's winter is very cold.
clothes.

你好，我想找安娜。 你好，我叫王国易。
Nǐhǎo, wǒ xiǎng zhǎo Ānnà. Nǐhǎo, wǒ jiào Wáng Guóyì.

Hello, can I speak to Anna? Hello, I'm Wang Guoyi.

他下个⽉出差。 你早餐吃了什么？
Tā xià gè yuè chūchāi. nǐ zǎocān chī le shénme ?

He is going on a business trip next What did you have for breakfast?
month.

我每天的早餐除了是⻨⽚还是⻨⽚. 她早餐吃了⼀个⾹蕉。
wǒ měi tiān de zǎocān chúle shì màipiàn hái shì Tā zǎo cān chī le yí gè xiāng jiāo.
màipiàn .
She had a banana for her breakfast.
My breakfast every day is cereal and
more cereal.

我去北京⼤楼。 你们去哪⼉？
Wǒ qù Běijīng dàlóu. Nǐmen qù nǎr?

I'm going to the Beijing building. Where are you going?

孩⼦饿了，喂他吃饭吧。 我们的办公室在⼋号楼。
Háizi è le, wèi tā chīfàn ba. Wǒmen de bàngōngshì zài bā hào lóu.

The child is hungry. How about feeding Our office is in building #8.
him?

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他⼀个⼈去，我不放⼼。 16块钱。
Tā yí gè rén qù, wǒ bú fàngxīn. Shí liù kuài qián.

He went alone, I can't relax. Sixteen Renminbi.

这⼉有⼀个⼩卖部。 我最喜欢的节日是国庆日。
Zhèr yǒu yí gè xiǎomàibù. Wǒ zuì xǐhuān de jiérì shì guóqìng rì.

There is a small shop here. My favourite holiday is National Day.

你最喜欢的节日是什么？ 节日
Nǐ zuì xǐhuān de jiérì shì shénme? jié rì

What‘s your favourite holiday？ holiday

今天是地球日。 我不学中⽂。
Jīntiān shì dìqiúrì . Wǒ bù xué Zhōngwén.

Today is Earth Day. I don't study Chinese.

这只猫的尾巴真长。 我⼯作了⼀天，很累。
Zhè zhǐ māo de wěiba zhēn cháng. Wǒ gōngzuò le yìtiān, hěn lèi.

This cat's tail is really long. I've worked for a whole day, and I'm
tired.

GRAMMAR

Introduction to Chinese Pronunciation

Each Chinese character can be said to be a syllable. These syllables can be a stand-alone
word, or they can be grouped together to make compound words. Each syllable, or
character, in Chinese is made up of an initial and a final sound. These initials and finals can
be combined to make up over four hundred unique word sounds in Chinese. Since there
are only four hundred or so individual possible word sounds in Chinese, there are a lot of
homophones—the context or the written character can tell you which word is being used.

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Chinese uses a phonetic system called pinyin to aid learners of Chinese in
pronunciation. This pinyin uses Romanized letters to represent the sounds of Chinese.

There are twenty-one initials in Chinese. This is the sound the word starts with. There are
about thirty-eight combinations of final sounds.

Pinyin

There are only approximately four hundred unique sounds in the Chinese language. These
unique sounds have been categorized into a Romanized phonetic system to aid Chinese
learners in learning the pronunciation of the Chinese characters. Further, each character
has its own tone and the tone is indicated in the pinyin phonetic system by a symbol
placed over the Romanized word.

Individual Chinese words are made up of an initial sound and a final sound. You can refer
to them on the website's pinyin chart, which has clickable audio to help you hear the
different combinations of sounds in the Chinese language. Each Chinese character is one
syllable. These characters, or syllables, can also be combined in groups of two or more to
make compound words.

Pinyin is a phonetic system used to teach standard pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese, to

spell Chinese names in foreign publications, and to enter Chinese characters on
computers.

Unlike in European languages, initials and finals—not consonants and vowels—are the
elements that make up a word in pinyin. Nearly every Chinese syllable is spelled with one
initial sound followed by one final sound.

Though pinyin uses the Roman alphabet, and some of the sounds are similar to their
English counterparts, some of the letters and combinations of letters have pronunciations
quite different from English. Pinyin cannot be read like English, even though it uses the
Roman alphabet.

There are only about four hundred different combinations of initials and finals in Chinese;
therefore there are many homophones. Of course, each Chinese character can also have
four possible tones, so that adds to the amount of individual sounds. For all the possible
combinations of sounds, you can visit the pinyin chart at ChineseClass101.

Some of the More Challenging Sounds of Chinese

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Some of the letters used to represent the sounds of Chinese are similar in pronunciation
to their English counterparts. However, there are some that are different. The ones that
give some people trouble sometimes are as follows:

Z: the difference with the English "z" is that this sound is made with your tongue touching
the back of your upper teeth. This results in a more "dz" sound.

C: sometimes confused with the "z" sound, the "c" is aspirated whereas the "z" is
not. Aspirated means that you let air out when producing this sound. The tongue touches
the back of the upper teeth here too.

Zh: to make this sound, the tip of the tongue is raised against the back of the gum
ridge. It has a similar sound to the English "j," but the retroflexive nature makes it much
thicker, as you can hear.

CH: is similar to the English "Ch," however the tip of the tongue is raised against the back
of the gum ridge, as it is in the "zh."

SH: is similar to the English "sh" however the tip of the tongue is raised against the back
of the gum ridge, as it is in the "zh" and "ch."

X: it also seems similar to the English "sh" but it is in fact produced quite differently. You
raise your tongue up and let the air squeeze out.

Q: it is in the range of the English "ch" but different in that it is also produced in the same
way as the x. You raise your tongue and let the air squeeze out.

R: this one is tough. Nothing like the English "r," so don't be fooled by the use of the letter
"r." Again, curled tongue, a "zee-ish" phenomenon.

There are only six vowels used in pinyin, but they are combined to produce a lot of
different sounds. You can listen to all of them by visiting ChineseClass101.com, where we
have a pinyin chart with clickable MP3 records of each of the sounds, to aid you in
perfecting the pronunciation.

U: one of the sounds that is a little more challenging for English speakers is the "u" sound.
This "u" sound is quite a nasal sound. It is said to be similar to the French "u" and is made
by pronouncing an "i," then rounding the mouth.

The Tones

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The first tone is high and steady: mā

The second tone is a rising tone: má and has intonation similar to that used in English to
indicate a question, i.e. "huh?"

The third tone dips down slightly in the middle: mǎ. You can feel a slight vibration at the
base of your throat when you are doing it correctly.

The fourth tone is falling, and falling fast. Sounds slightly angrier than the rest. mà.

And then we have the Switzerland of tones, being the neutral tone. Which is a relief.
Because it's just, well, neutral. No tone. ma.

The tone change rules

Tone changes for third tone:

‧ There are some special circumstances that occur with certain combinations of
tones that are together in a compound word or sentence.
When two or more third-tone characters occur in a row, the last of these remains
a third tone, while the one(s) before it change to the second tone. If there are
more than two third tones in a row, the final third tone in each series remains a
third tone, while the rest become second tone.

‧ Tone changes for 不 bù:

The character 不 (bù), which a negator, or means "no" or "not", is normally a
fourth tone character, but when it comes before another fourth tone character, it
changes to the second tone.
Therefore, instead of saying bù shì and bù yaò, you would say bú shì and bú yaò.

‧ Tone changes for ⼀ yī:

The word yi is 1st tone when used as part of a number: ⼀⼆三, ⼗⼀ (yī, èr, sǎn;
shíyī)
The word yi is 4th tone when preceding 1st, 2nd, or 3rd tones: ⼀起 (yìqǐ)
The word yi is 2nd tone when preceding a 4th tone: ⼀共 (yígòng)

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One of the best ways to get Chinese pronunciation down pat is to listen and repeat, listen
and repeat. Which is something you can do at ChineseClass101.com. We have audio files
of native speakers, and even a voice recorder for you to see how you sound in comparison.

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