Lesson 1-1 Chinese Pinyin

An overview of Chinese Pinyin

Chinese Pinyin uses Roman alphabetical letters as its written form, but having different pronunciation (Table 1):

Table 1 Chinese Phonetic Alphabet

Aa ㄚ Bb ㄅㄝ Cc ㄘㄝ Dd ㄉㄝ Ee ㄜ Ff ㄝㄈ

Gg ㄍㄝ Hh ㄏㄚ Ii ㄧ Jj ㄐㄧㄝ Kk ㄎㄝ Ll ㄝㄌ

Mm ㄝㄇ Nn ㄋㄝ Oo ㄛ Pp ㄆㄝ Qq ㄑㄧㄡ Rr ㄚㄦ

Ss ㄝㄙ Tt ㄊㄝ Uu ㄨ Vv 万ㄝ Ww ㄨㄚ Xx ㄒㄧ

Yy ㄧㄚ Zzㄗㄝ

• National phonetic alphabet is still being used in China’s Taiwan Province.

Before introducing Chinese syllables, we need to know the names of the articulators – the parts of our speech organs used to produce a specific sound. The major articulators involved are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Points of Articulation

1. upper lip

2. lower lip

3. upper teeth

4. lower teeth

5. upper gum

6. lower gum

7. hard palate

8. soft palate

9. oral cavity

10. nasal cavity

11. tip of the tongue

12. root of the tongue

13. vocal cords

A Chinese syllable usually consists of three elements: the initial consonant, the simple or compound vowel, and the tone. The initial consonant refers to the consonant which appears in the initial position of a syllable, and the simple or compound vowel comes after it. Some syllables can stand alone without initial consonants. There are a total of 21 initial consonants and 36 vowels, which include 7 simple vowels and 29 vowels-compounds. The vowels-compounds can be further divided into three categories: compound vowel, front nasal vowels and back nasal vowels.

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