Expert Says

Jun 13 2022

Speaking Chinese Is Easier Than You Think 说汉语比您想的容易太多

a o e i u
You know them well, right?
ü
Em, this is new to you. Actually, in Chinese spell sound, it is equivalent to the letter v. If you are entering Pinyin for a Chinese character that needs the final/vowel ü, you may just hit the key v on the keyboard.

Pinyin, Hanyu Pinyin, or Romanized Pinyin, is a system that pronounces Chinese words with the Latin alphabet based on their pronunciation. In Mandarin Chinese, it literally means ‘spell sound’, which means it is the phonetic of Mandarin Chinese.

Same as English, Pinyin consist of 26 letters. However, a few differences between English,

• The 1st difference is there are six letters, a o e i u, plus ü(v), which play as the final/vowel components in Pinyin.
• The 2nd difference is the a o e i u ü(v) can be used alone and also can join together with letters n and g to compile compound final/vowels, in total 24 final/vowels in Pinyin.
• The 3rd difference is that the rest 21 letters play as initial/consonant components which are compiled for 23 initial/consonants. The chart below will show you the Pinyin Alphabet.
  

Every Chinese character is named in Pinyin in monosyllable which contains an initial/consonant at the first and followed by a final/vowel at the end, and a tone mark on the top of the final/vowel. The sound of the Chinese character (Hanzi) is named just like that.

Obviously, the sounds of most letters are very close to the English letters pronounced. So to learn speaking of Mandarin Chinese, Pinyin can help you to speak almost immediately. Just like that, speaking Chinese is much easy than your thought.

Click on the letters a o e i u ü to listen to how the six basic final/vowels are pronounced. You can pronounce them well if you speak English.