What is Mandarin Pinyin and How to Learn it?
Learning a new language can be scary and intimidating, especially when you’re tackling a language like Mandarin that has a reputation for being tough. But if more than a billion people around the world can speak Mandarin, so can you!
A great way to start learning Mandarin is to learn Mandarin pinyin, which transcribes hanzi (Chinese characters) into a set of sounds and tones that are written using the Roman alphabet. The first time you see a pinyin chart, you might think “I already know this!” But don’t get confused! Yes, the letters are the same, but the phonetics aren’t.
You can use Mandarin pinyin as a stepping stone to start learning hanzi. It's not just foreigners who learn Mandarin pinyin either, young Chinese schoolchildren learn pinyin before they learn hanzi too.
Apart from pinyin being a great introduction to hanzi, and an easy way to start learning Mandarin, you’ll also need Mandarin pinyin for a number of other reasons. Even once you can write hanzi fluently, you’ll need to know the pinyin alphabet to type in Mandarin. Hanzi keyboards don’t exist yet, so when you chat to your friends, write emails, or search online, you’ll type in pinyin.
You’ll also find yourself using Mandarin pinyin to look up words in the dictionary; it’s much easier to use pinyin to search for new words and their meanings than it is to use hanzi. Learning Mandarin pinyin is an essential skill that will help you broaden your vocabulary and allow you to write down words in Mandarin before you start learning hanzi.
As you can see, there are various practical reasons why you’ll need to learn pinyin. In fact, learning Mandarin pinyin isn’t a step you can skip when you learn Mandarin as you’ll need it after you’ve mastered hanzi too.
5 Tips to Learn Mandarin Pinyin
1. Switch to your Mandarin brain
Switching on your “Mandarin brain” when you’re practising pinyin will help you avoid pronouncing the letters as you would in English. For example, the letter “e” is pronounced as “eh” in the English phonetic alphabet, and as “uh” in Mandarin pinyin.
Do you remember when you were taught the phonetic alphabet at school and you discovered each letter had a unique sound when it was put into a word? Well, you can think of Mandarin pinyin as a new phonetic alphabet.
Mandarin pinyin is made up of letters and four different tones. Each letter has its own pronunciation, but if there’s a tone on top of the letter, then the sound changes. It’s a good idea to learn the pronunciation of each letter first. Once you know your letters, you can learn what each tone does to the sound of the letter and start practising those too!
2. Look at tongue positions to help you get it just right
Each language has a unique set of sounds, that’s why Mandarin is so different to English! We make different sounds by positioning our tongue in a certain way inside our mouth. It might seem silly but learning where to position your tongue to pronounce each pinyin letter will help you get the sound just right and make it easier to learn letters that are particularly hard to pronounce.
3. Use online resources
There are so many great resources available online that help and teach you how to learn and practice Mandarin pinyin. You can try out different language learning apps and complement your learning with free YouTube tutorials taught by natives and Mandarin teachers.
You can also print out a pinyin chart to stick on your bedroom wall or in the family sitting room. If there are Mandarin pinyin charts around the house, you can have a glance over them as you eat your breakfast or get ready to go to school or work. What’s more is it will also remind you to practice!
4. Practice Makes Perfect
In this case, the old adage rings loud and true. There are lots of ways you can practice Mandarin pinyin to ensure your knowledge of it grows and your pronunciation becomes increasingly accurate. At the start of your learning process, the most important thing is to expose yourself to the language as much as possible. Once you know a few of the Mandarin pinyin sounds and tones, or classmates to teach you some new ones.
Other ways you can practice is by watching cartoons or movies with Mandarin pinyin subtitles and listening to Mandarin songs. Alternatively, you can simply converse with people in Mandarin and ask them to help you with the pronunciation of certain words if you still haven’t got the hang of it.
When you’re learning a new language, consistency is essential. By practising Mandarin pinyin every day, even if it’s for just ten minutes, you bring everything you’ve learnt to the front of your mind.
You’ll notice that each time you go back over your Mandarin pinyin chart, it gets easier and easier, but if you don’t practice regularly, it will be harder and take longer to master the language.
5. Get Mandarin pinyin lessons
There are many teachers out there who offer bespoke classes that fully focus on mastering pinyin.If you’re looking for tutoring classes to help with your Chinese pinyin learning, Linguabox offers a tailored curriculum to meet your needs with flexible schedules and everything you need to ensure your pinyin pronunciation is on point. Whether that’s speaking, writing, or a custom package, we can help you on your journey to fluency. What’s more is Linguabox offers a one-on-one free trial class so you can assess just how good our tutors are.
