What Is a Pinyin?
Pinyin is a Romanization system that uses the Roman alphabet to represent the sounds of spoken Mandarin.
The Pinyin system was published by the Chinese Government in 1958. It serves as a useful tool for foreigners who are not adept at recognizing Chinese script, enabling them to read and recognize Chinese.
Additionally, Pinyin is helpful for clarifying pronunciation among Chinese speakers who may speak mutually unintelligible Chinese dialects. It also assists Chinese individuals in typing Chinese characters and looking up new words in the dictionary.
What is the structure of Chinese syllables?
A typical Chinese syllable consists of an initial, a final and a tone. For example:
- mā = m (initial) + ā (final +tone 1)
- rén = r (initial) + én (final + tone 2)
- hǎo = h (initial) + ǎo (final + tone 3)
- jiè = j (initial) + iè (final +tone 4)
There are some syllables that don’t have an initial, such as ào, é, ér etc.
How many initials?
There are 21 initials in total.