is the Chinese mandarin
phonetic transcription system based on the Latin alphabet. Pinyin allows
foreigners to learn how to correctly pronounce the sounds of the Chinese
language. This transcription is taught also in Chinese schools with
the same aim: correctly pronounce the national language.
A syllable in Chinese
has the following structure:
| Tone |
| Consonant |
Vowel |
| Only
in exceptional cases the syllable begins for vowel |
The Latin letters function
as the international phonetic alphabet.
As the sounds are not
the same please see the following table:
Consonants
Vowels
6 simple
vowels: a, o, e, i, u, ü
Tonos
Chinese is a tonal language.
It has 4 tones and one light tone. The sign of the tones is respectively
1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ,which we will show after each syllable.
• 1º
tone: is a high pitched tone that is always high and clear.
• 2º
tone: is an ascending tone which goes from medium to high pitched.
• 3º
tone: is a curved tone, that goes down and then up.
• 4º
tone: is a descending tone that goes down.
• 5º
tone: is a light tone
One word can have different
meanings according to how it is said. Tone is therefore very important.
For example,
the word ma, if we say it in the first tone is means 'mother'
and if we say it in the second tone it means 'hemp', in the third
'horse' and in the fourth 'to insult'.
ma1
ma2 ma3 ma4 ma5
Introdudcing the Chinese
characters on the computer
In Chinese, every syllable
is a character. Once you have installed the software to introduce the
Chinese characters (Windows XP already has it installed) you can write
in Pinyin on the computer.
For
exampl: if you write wo3 , you will see
