Introduction

Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "spell sound", or the spelling of the sound. It is used to teach Chinese schoolchildren and foreign learners the standard pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese, to spell Chinese names in foreign publications. It has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers.

Initials and Finals

The pronunciation of Chinese is generally given in terms of initials and finals, which represent the segmental phonemic portion of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of medial (semivowels coming before the vowel), the nucleus vowel, and coda (final vowel or consonant).

(1). Initials

(2). Finals

Lessons

Lesson 1. Initials _ b p m f d t n l

Lesson 2. Initials _ g k h j q x

Lesson 3. Initials _ zh ch sh r z c s y w

Lesson 4. Finals _ a o e ai ei ao ou an en ang eng ong

Lesson 5. Finals _ i ia ie iao iou ian in iang ing iong

Lesson 6. Finals _ u ua uo uai uei uan uen uang ueng

Lesson 7. Finals _ ü üe üɑn ün