Chinese Learning Direct: Content / article / What is PinYin

Pinyin, short for Hanyu Pinyin, which means "phonetic notation" or "phonetic symbols" while Pin means "spell(ing)" and Yin means "sound(s)"), is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1912) and Postal System Pinyin, and replaced zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland China.
Since then, Pinyin has been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and most international institutions as the preferred transcription system for Mandarin. In 1979 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese (ISO-7098:1991).
Pinyin is a romanization and not an anglicization; that is, it uses Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin Chinese. The way these letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin Chinese will differ from how other languages that use the Roman alphabet represent sound. For example, the sounds indicated in Pinyin by b and p are distinguished from each other (by aspiration) in a manner different from that of both English (which has voicing and aspiration) and of French (which has voicing alone). Other letters, like j, q, x or zh indicate sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in Pinyin such as the ang ending, do not correspond to English pronunciations, either. Pinyin has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers.
When learning Chinese Pinyin, you shall be aware of certain limitations:

2. Basics of PinYin
In general, A syllable(PinYin of a chinese character) in Chinese is composed of an initial, which is a consonant that begins the syllable, and a final, wich covers the rest of the syllable.

2.1 Initials
There are 21 posible initials in PinYin:

b	p	m	f
d	t	n	l
g	k	h
j	q	x
z	c	s
zh	ch	sh	r

m, f, n, l, h and sh are pronounced as in English.
d like "d" in "bed" (unaspirated)
j like "g" in "genius" (unaspirated)
z like "ds" in "beds"
zh like "j" in "job"
b like "p" in "spin" (unaspirated)
g a soft unaspirated "k" sound
x like "sh" in "sheep" but with the corners of the lips drawn back
r somewhat like "r" in "rain"
Particular attention should be paid to the pronunciation of the so-called "aspirated" consonants. It is necessary to breath heavily after the consonant is pronounced.
p like "p" in "pope"
t like "t" in "tap"
k like "k" in "kangaroo"
q harder than "ch" in "cheap"
c like "ts" in "cats"
ch (tongue curled back, aspirated)
Distinction between certain initials:
b / p d / t g / k j / q z / c zh / ch

2.2 Finals
In modern Chinese, there are 38 finals:

	i	u	ü
a	ia	ua
o		uo	üe
e	ie
er
ai		uai
ei		uei (ui)
ao	iao
ou	iou (iu)
an	ian	uan	üan
en	in	uen (un)	üen
ang	iang	uang
eng	ieng	ueng
ong	iong

ie like "ye" in "yes"
e like "e" in "her"
er like "er" in "sister" (american pronounciation)
ai like "y" in "by" (light)
ei like "ay" in "bay"
ou like "o" in "go"
an like "an" in "can" (without stressing the "n")
-ng (final) a nasalized soung like the "ng" in "bang" without pronouncing the "g"
uei, uen and iou when preceded by an initial, are written as ui, un and iu respectivly.

2.3 Tones
Mandarin Chinese has four pitched tones and a "toneless" tone.

Tone	Mark	Description
1st	dā	High and level
2nd	dá	Starts medium in tone, then rises to the top
3rd	dǎ	Starts low, dips to the bottom, then rises toward the top
4th	dà	Starts at the top, then falls sharp and strong to the bottom
Neutral	da	Flat, with no emphasis

Please note, When a 3rd tone immediatlely followed by another 3rd tone, the first one should be pronounced as a 2nd tone.
for example:

Nǐ hǎo = Ní hǎo

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