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Communicate in Chinese-Phonetics 1

yǔ yīn 语音 Phonetics

To begin with, we'll learn how to utter the Chinese sounds.

Syllables composed of vowels and consonants are the smallest units in the Chinese phonetic system.

Initials and vowels are formed with syllables. A character, the written form of the Chinese language,

stands for a syllable. But Chinese is not a truly phonetic language. To help learners read Chinese

characters a pinyin system has been designed for transliterating them into a phonetic alphabet.

The letters thus adopted are identical to the English ones, but they are not phonetically equal to each

other. Therefore it is advisable for learners to take note of the difference between them.

A Chinese syllable is composed of an initial that forms its beginning part, and a final that covers its

remainder, in addition to a tone mark that indicates a variation of speech pitch. Most of the initials

are consonants, and the finals consist of the vowels or is the combination of vowels and consonant.

1) Initials声母

There are 21 initials and Chinese: b p m f d t n l g k h j q x zh ch sh r z c s

2) Finals 韵母

There are 35 Chinese finals given below:

韵母表

3)Tones 声调

Chinese tones are used to differentiate meanings. There are four basic tones known as the flat tone,

the rising tone, the rising tone ,and the falling tone, or the first tone, the second tone ,the third

tone and the fourth tones.

The Chinese tones are interesting for you to learn. Take it easy when you are unable to grasp them at

first. Believe it or not ,once you have mastered them, you 'll feel much eager about learning Chinese.

You can surely do it.