Chinese Pinyin

source: commons.wikimedia.org

For the every first few lessons of my Chinese courses, my students and I will work seriously on the Chinese pinyin. It is because pinyin is the gateway to accurate Chinese pronunciation. In fact, even at any point of the course, we sometimes need to revisit pinyin to keep us on track.

It is a common scene on TV where a foreigner is speaking Mandarin with all the four tones mixed up, making him look funny and stupid. We are not going to allow this to happen.

Here is an excellent site on pinyin and it is actually a big chapter on its own. It is extremely useful if you wish to check certain pronunciation of some words or practice by yourselves because I am not always there to correct your pinyin pronunciation by your side. You can test yourselves in pinyin as well and it is really useful. A million thanks to the person created it. Have fun.