There are two aspects of Chinese characters' pronunciation to learn about.
1. Phonics - Pinyin Invariably, each Chinese character's pronunciation is either a consonant followed by one or two vowels (always in this order) or one or two vowels only. In an analogy, Chinese characters all sound a bit like "La", "Di", "Da". And generally the pronunciation of each Chinese character lasts about the same length in a sentence. So roughly, a Chinese sentence sounds like "he saw me", "I know you"...
Here, we can use English pronunciation of letter "i" as one example.
Tone 1: flat In English, it is the default tone we use to pronounce 'i' emotionlessly as in saying "I am ...." . The audio material will show flat tone 'i', and how 'i' would sound on other tones as if with strong emotions although you should keep in mind that in Chinese, tones have nothing to do with meanings or emotions.
Tone 2: up This tone is a little like the tone used in English for questions. For example: "Is he right?" The tone of "i" used in word 'right' here is equivalent to the up tone used in Chinese...
Pinyin: Pinyin is a Roman-letter based system that China now uses to mark the pronunciation of Chinese characters. With four tones and pinyin, any Chinese characters can be pronounced precisely. In many cases, Pinyin is quite intuitive to English speakers with only a few exceptions. However, it can be a twist to render Pinyin in four tones for people who just start...
Consonant Table: b p m f d t n l g k h j q x z c s r zh ch sh y w For consonants, we also put all these into English words with the same sound for you to learn and remember in an easier way.
*Note: We pronounce these consonants followed by some vowels that can help deliver the sound more clearly. Letters in the following explanation in "..." are pronounced as in English, and those in '... ' are pronounced in Pinyin. b - as the "b" in "book" p - as the "p" in "pool" m - as the "m" in "moon" f - as the "f" in...
