What is "Pinyin" or "Chinese Pinyin"?
"Pinyin", "HanYu Pinyin" or "Mandarin Chinese Pinyin" is a way to use Roman letters to represent the pronunciation of the Chinese characters. Pinyin is a very recent system compare with the Chinese characters. Pinyin is adopted in China in 1979, while the Chinese characters have over 5 tho_usand years of history. 2. Why did Chinese people adopt the Pinyin system around 30 years ago? The primary reason was to facilitate Chinese learning and teaching in China. The Chinese characters don't carry phonetically clues like in English. In stead of spelling a word with letters, the Chinese characters are originally ideograms which means it's based on a system using graphic symbols to represent idea or objects. The unique feature of the Chinese language makes the "Pinyin" system relevant and extremely helpful learning tools. One more important note on Pinyin is that each syllable represents one character, because each character in Chinese has only one syllable. 3. What are the Chinese tones? Each pinyin syllable in Chinese can have 4 possible ways to pronounce by varying the pitch/tone. There are four tones in Mandarin Chinese. One syllable, pronounced in different tones will usually mean radically different things. This fact makes the Chinese Tone Training an fundamentally important part of any serious Chinese learners. It may sound exotic and intimidating, no need to be! With the help of our Pinyin Learning ToolWhat are the Chinese characters?Chinese people read and write characters (not pinyin) in their daily life. Characters are originated from pictures, symbols and ideas. You can find interesting stories behind each character. For example, 日( sun) comes from the picture of the sun, 月(moon) from moon , and 明 is the combination of the sun and the moon. So the meaning of 明 is bright.s you shall get acquainted with it and mastering it very quickly. Here is a link to pronounce the correct sound of each PINYIN letter. |
*Do you know how to speak Chinese numbers?
Chinese Reading and Writing
What are the Chinese characters? Chinese people read and write characters (not pinyin) in their daily life. Characters are originated from pictures, symbols and ideas. You can find interesting stories behind each character. For example, 日( sun) comes from the picture of the sun, 月(moon) from moon , and 明 is the combination of the sun and the moon. So the meaning of 明 is bright. What are the stroke orders? Characters are formed by strokes. Stroke is the beginning and ending of the movement of a pen. There is a fixed sequence of the strokes when composing a Chinese character. It is important to follow the stroke order when you write Chinese. Experience tells us you can remember much better if you write characters in the right stroke order. You can find an online Chinese dictionary here. If you type English or pinyin, your computer will find the Chinese characters and read them for you. Chinese knotting
|