Chinese – Pronunciation
Chinese is romanized into English with the pinyin system, which allows non-readers and speakers of Chinese to easily get a grasp of the language. The pronunciation of Chinese includes sounds that are the same in English, sounds that are similar to English, as well as sounds that are totally alien to English. You’ll discover that beyond the challenges of the tones and a few of the initial consonants and the finals, Chinese pronunciation is relatively easy for English speakers to master.
Chinese syllables are divided into two parts – the initial consonant and the final. Chinese syllables start with the initial or initial consonant and end with final.
Initial Sounds:
These initial letters are pronounced the same as in English:
f – as in “from”
l – as in “lay”
m – as in “man”
n – as in “no”
s – as in “sheep”
w – as in “woman”
y – as in “yes”
The following initial letters are slightly different. If the pronunciation requires a strong puff of breath, hold your hand several inches from your mouth and say the consonant so you can feel your breath when you pronounce the letter.
b – as in “bay” (no puff of breath)
d – as in “day” (no puff of breath)
g – as in “gay” (no puff of breath)
h – as in “hot” (slightly more aspirated than in English)
k – as in “kay” (use a strong puff of breath)
p – as in “pay” (use a strong puff of breath)
t – as in “take” (use a strong puff of breath)
The following initial letters are the most difficult for English speakers:
c – like the “ts” in “hats”
j – like the “jee” in “jeep”
q – like the “chee” in “cheese”
r – like the “r” in “run” with the tongue rolled back
x – like the “shee” in “sheep”
z – like the “ds” in “reads”
ch – like the “ch” in “church”
sh – like the “sh” in “shirt”
zh – like the “j” in “junk”
Final (Ending) Sounds:
The finals connect with the initials to create Chinese words.
a – as in “father”
o – like the “aw” in “saw” halfway between o and a
e – sounds like “uh” in the back of the throat
i – like a long “e” or the “ee” in “feet” after z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r
i – like the short “ea” in “sea” after consonants other than z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r
u – like the “oo” in “loop”
ü –ee with rounded lips like the German “Fühlen”
ai – like the “i” in “high”
ei – like a long “a” or the “ei” in “eight”
ao – like the “ow” in “now”
ou – like the “ow” in “low”
an – like the “an” in “can” or the sound of “ahh”
en – like “un” in “under”
ang – like the sound of “an” in hang with the addition of “g”
eng – like the “ung” in “lung”
ong – like the “ong” in “bong” with a slight “oo”
ia – like the “ya” in “yacht”
ie – like the “ye” in “yes”
iao – like the “yow” in “yowl”
iu – like the “yo” in “yoke” varies with consonant
ian – like the word “yen”
in – like the “ean” in “bean”
iang – ee+yang with the “a” in papa
ing – like the “ing” in “sing”
iong – yee+ong
ua – like the “wa” in “waddle”
uo – like the word “woe”
uai – like the “wi” in “wine”
uan – like the “wan” in “wand”
un – the sound of “oo” in “book” but pronounced like “woon”
uang – oo+ahng
üe – ü+eh
üan – ü+an
ün – like “ün” in German “grün”
Chinese – Tones
Part of the pin-yin romanization system is the tones of the Chinese language. Controlling the voice’s pitch to form a distinctive pitch contour creates the four tones in Chinese. Maintaining or changing the pitch over the duration of a syllable controls the pitch contour for that syllable.
Tones in Chinese are called lexical tones because changing the tone will change the meaning of a word. Mandarin has four different lexical tones and each tone has a fixed underlying contour. The tones of Chinese are high or low depending on their relationship to other words within the sentence. An incorrectly spoken tone will make the word difficult to comprehend and completely change the meaning. For a native Mandarin speaker, the differences in both sound and meaning among ‘mā’ (mother), ‘má’ (hemp), ‘mǎ’ (horse), and ‘mà’ (to scold or curse) are just as striking as ‘map,’ ‘man,’ ‘may’ and ‘mat’ for an English speaker.
The 1st Tone
The word is spoken with an even tone, at the highest level of the speaker’s voice (speech) range.
The 2nd Tone
The word is spoken with a “rising” tone. The tone begins near the bottom of the speaker’s range and rises upward to the top level, much like an English speaker asking a question at the end of the sentence.
The 3rd Tone
The 3rd tone is spoken by starting the word slightly above the bottom of the speaker’s range, then letting it drop to the bottom, then rise to about the middle of the range, something like an overly sarcastic ”yes.”
The 4th Tone
This tone starts high and drops off quickly to the lowest range of the speaker’s range. It’s sharp and quick as if answering a question with an emphatic “no.”
Neutral Tone
The neutral tone isn’t the same as the four regular tones – it doesn’t have its own underlying contour and its usage is rarely crucial to the meaning of a word. It’s spoken very lightly as if it has no tone.