Chinese Mandarin (PuTongHua) Pronunciation – Pinyin
Mandarin is the official language of China and as such is now what truly can be called Chinese since it is learnt by every single Chinese person.
As the West establishes stronger business links with China and a greater interest in Chinese culture the importance of learning Mandarin is increasing from a global perspective.
It is a relatively flexible language with less rules than English and therefore it is not difficult to learn to speak or understand Mandarin but almost impossible for most Westerners to learn to read or write using traditional Chinese characters.
For this reason various systems have been developed to Romanise Chinese words based on how they sound. The most famous of these is Pinyin which is standard in China and was developed by the Chinese Government in an attempt to raise the literacy rate.
Whilst the Pinyin Phonetic Alphabet is definitely an aid to learning Mandarin there are some sounds in spoken Chinese that do not exist in English and a system of vocal tones that affect the way in which words are pronounced.
Learning Mandarin at Chisense will improve your pronunciation as well as your command of the language not least because our Mandarin Teacher not only holds a degree in Chinese Language and Literature but also worked as a radio presenter and journalist in China.
Classes are available for both individuals and groups and can be tailored exactly to your requirements.
Tones
Chinese is a tonal language. There are four basic tones in putonghua as shown by the following tone marks.
- The High and level Tone shown “Ma” as “Mā”,
- The Rising Tone shown “Ma” as “Má”
- The Falling-and-Rising Tone shown “Ma” as ” ǎ”
- The Falling Tone shown “Ma” as “Mà”
Syllables
Most Syllables in Chinese are composed of initials, finals and tones. A small number of syllables, however, have only finals and tones, but not initials, eg. There are as many as 1200 syllables in putonghua(Common Chinese language)
Finals
The phonetic symbols of putonghua (Common Chinese Language) in Modern Chinese comprises 39 finals that are composed of voedls or vowel followed by nasal consonants. These finals fall into three categories:
- simple finals which have only a single vowel, eg. a, o, e…
- multi-finals which have two or three vowels, eg. ai,ua,iao;
- nasal finals which consist of one or two vowels and a nasal consonant’s eg. an, üan, eng, iong.
a The mouth is wide open. The tongue is flat and at its lowest position. The lips are not rounded.
o The mouth is half open. The tongue is flat and at its lowest position. The lips are not rounded.
e The opening of the mouth and the position of the tongue are identical with that for “o”, but the lips are not rounded. It can be produced by pronouncing “O” and then spreading the lips towards the two sides.
i The opening of the mouth is narrow. The tongue raised and pushed forward towards the position naturally against the lower teeth. the lips spread to the two sides into a flat position.
u The opening of the mouth is narrow. The tongue is held back with its back raised close to the soft palate. The lips are forced into a harrow and round position with only a small opening left.
ü It is pronounced with the tongue in position for i, but the lips are forced into a round position.
Initials
The phonetic symbols of putonghua comprises 21 initials that are consonants beginning a syllable.
b
It is pronounced by keeping the lips tightly closed to block the air ,but then opening them to let the air out.
p
It is pronounced in position for “b”, but explodes with a strong puff of air .
m
It is pronounced by keeping the lips tightly closed and the soft palate dropped to force the air out through the nose.
f
It is pronoumced by raising the tongne tip against the upper teethridge to block the air and then putting it down to release the air .
d
It is pronounced by raising the tongne tip against the upper teethridge to block the air and then putting it down to release the air.
t
It is pronounced in position for “d”, but explodes with a strong puff of air.
n
It is produced by raising the tongue tip against the upper teethridge and dropping the soft palate to allow the air to run out through the nose.
l
It is pronounced with the tongue tip a little behind the position for “n” to allow the air to run out from both sides of the blade.
g
It is pronounced by raising the back of the tongue against the soft palate to block the air, and then putting it down to release the air.
k
It is pronounced with the mouth in position for “g” , but explodes with a strong puff of air. The vocal cords do not vibrate.
h
It is pronounced by raising the back of the tongue to the soft palate to make a narrow passage for the air to be expelled with friction.
j
This sound is pronounced by first putting the tip of the tongue against the lower teeth and blocking the air with its front part against the hard palate, and the dropping to release the air.
q
It is an aspirated equivalent of “j”.
x
It is pronounced by raising the tongue close to the hard palate to expell the air with friction through the narrow passage.
z
It is pronounced by putting forward the tongue to block the air with its tip against the upper teeth ridge, and then dropping the tip to release the air with friction through the narrow passage.
[i] It only follows the consonants “z”, “c” or “s”.
c
It is an aspirated equivalent of [z].
s
It is produced by putting forward the tongue tip to a position close to the upper teeth ridge to make a narrow passage for the air to run out through with friction.
zh
It is pronounced by turning up the tongue tip against the front part of the hard palate to block the air and then releasing it through the narrowing of the air passage between the tongue tip and the hard palate.
[i]It only follows these consonants like zh, ch, sh and r. It can be produced by first pronouncing r without moving the tongue and then keeping the sound there. The part without audible friction is [i].
ch
It is pronounced in position of “zh”, but the air should be forced out through the narrow passage. The vocal cords do not vibrate.
sh
It is pronounced by turning up the tongue tip close to the hard palate to make a narrow passage through which the air escapes with friction.
r
It is pronunced in position for “sh” ,but the friction is soft.
y
y is special sign in Chinese Pin-Yin, it can’t form syllable alone. It sometimes expresses I and ü. In general, it always appears in some Pin-Yin joinder form of standing as a syllable alone.
Example: The vowelü and I are all only one Pin-Yin characted. When standing as a syllable as a syllable alone, they should be added y before them. Their forms are [yi],[yu] (erase two dot upon ü).
When [ia], [ie],[ian] etc. Compound finals forms syllable alone, I should be written y ,so their forms are [ya], [ye], [yan].
[iu] is a special compound final, when it forms syllables alone, is written as [you].
When y express ü, different from y express I, should add y before ü, meantime erase two dot rather than replace y.
w
Also a special sign, it can’t form a syllable alone. It only expresses u, and appears in some Pin-Yin joinder of standing as a alones. The vowel u can only become one Pin-Yin character in Chinese, when it forms syllable alone should add w before it, becomes [wu]. When [ua],[uai],[uo] etc. Compound vowels form a syllable alone, chang u to w, are written as [wa],[wai],[wo].
[ai] [ei] [ui]
These are all compound finals. In each of them, the former vowel is more open, longer and louder while the latter one is narrow, short, weak and blurred. It is imperative to have a natural glide, but not a sudden change from the former to the latter.
[ao] [ou] [iu]
These are all compound finals. In each of them, the former vowel is more open, longer and louder while the latter one is narrow, short, weak and blurred. It is imperative to have a natural glide, but not a sudden change from the former to the latter.
[ie]
These are compound finals. The first vowel is pronounced by making the mouth opening narrow and the sound soft and short, and then it glides quickly to the second vowel which is formed by opening the mouth widely and is long and loud.
üe
These are also compound finals. When you pronounce the first vowel the lips are forced into a round position, then glide quickly to the second vowel.
üe
These change respectively to “yue” in written forms when standing as a syllable alone.
er
This is a retroflex final. [er] is produced by first half opening the mouth and placing the tongue flat, and then , when “[e]” is made, raising the tongue tip close to the hard palate and putting it down a gain immediately. “er” forms a syllable alone.
er – Sometimes, “er” is combined with another final in the preceding syllable to form a retroflex ending. The Chinese character for “er” is “er” (er); such as : Na er, where.
an en an is nasal finals. -n is an alveolarnasal consonant or a front nasal consonant. The nasal finals are pronounced by first producing the vowel and then placing the tongue tip against the back of the upper teeth to force the air out through the nose.
in in is a front nasal final.
[un] [ýn]
[un] [ýn] is nasal finals. When pronounce the first final, you should round your lips, and then it glides quickly to the second vowel The tongue press its back against the soft palate and release the air through the nose.
[ang],[eng], [ing]and [ong]
These are also nasal finals. [-ng] is a velar nasal consonant, or a back nasal consonant. These nasal finals are pronounced by drawing back the tongue and pressing its back against the soft palate as soon as the vowel is produced to release the air through the nose.