pinyin

Hello, I'm Nick. I've been studying Japanese for a couple of years and have started learning Mandarin about a couple of months ago. I'm a very academic learner of these languages, trying to perfect pronunciation by studying linguistics and speech patterns from people around me. In summary, I'm...

Hi, guys! As it is extremely hard to find a good online summary of all Pinyin pronunciation rules, I am listening the sounds in a Pinyin chart: Mandarin Chinese Pinyin Chart with Audio - Yabla Chinese . I have read here that the final -iu is pronounced [jou], but I can't hear the "o" in the...

Dear all, I am a bit confused for the pronunciation of the syllable "jiàn".I thought that the pronunciation is unique. The syllable "jiàn" in the word for soy sauce that means jiàngyou is pronounced in a different way as for example in the words zàijiàn or jiànbào. Can you help me with this ?

大家好： 因为我发的上一帖（new and niu4)，促使我思考汉语的这个ou音，到底是怎么发的？ 是先发schwa /ə/，然后发/ʊ/吗？ 其实我发, 比如“欧”，能长时间保持一个口型不变（嘴一直不收拢），听起来还是“欧”。 当然了，这个“欧”音要停止的时候，是必须收拢一下口。但如果不停止，嘴唇不用收拢，且能发出“欧”。 还有，我感觉不是从 schwa /ə/起始的，而是比/ə/更高的一个音（请变换着发/ə/和欧，感觉一下），而且一直是这个音，不必向另一个音滑动。 所以，“欧”到底是双元音还是单元音？起始音到底是什么？

大家好： 你觉得英语的 new 和中文的 niu4 发音一样吗？专家说汉语的niu实际上是niou /njou/。如果那样，应该是和英语的new 不一样，因为new 是/nju/。 但我怎么觉得是完全一样的呢？

hey guys! I have seen somewhere that the "r" sound is meant to sound more like a "j" sound as in the word "asia" or "measure" but can someone tell me if this is more common pronunciation? Which part of China uses this sound as opposed to the normal r sound? thanks!

大家好！ I have a question about the sounds -in, -ing. In what regions of China are these sounds usually distinguished? (I think it is a minority of speakers who differentiate -in from -ing, right? despite them being the standard sounds) From what I've heard, I think people from 北京 and 山东 do for...

大家好! My textbook says there are some blank spaces in the 拼音 table because it is either impossible for such a sound to be pronounced, or that it could be pronounced but there is no such sound in Chinese language. Is there any other explanation? e.g. "It would be confusing if used in combination...

各位好： 这个介绍中文音系的维基词条（https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Standard_Chinese_phonology）说： 安（前无介音）的元音是[a]，因此我们可推导出像办、谈、感等元音也是一样。 当然，肯定有人发这个音，但是我觉得生活中很多人不会开口那么大。 我觉得人们往往发的像英语的[æ]， 甚至是[ʌ]。 比如汉语的“办”这个词，我们发音是否像英语的ban 或 bun？我听了听美式英语的ban 和 bun，觉得都算是“办”。当然，需要忽略前面的清音和浊音。

Based on what I've read so far, the Pinyin sequence "zh" is supposed to represent the voiceless unaspirated retroflex affricate, i.e. [ʈʂ], but in the word "zhōng" (as in "Zhōngguó"), my Chinese instructor pronounces it as the voiceless unaspirated alveolar affricate, i.e. [ts], represented by...

Hi, I'm digitizing a songbook and I'm trying to add proper spacing, capitalization, and punctuation to a paragraph in pinyin. This is what the book says: On Wikipedia, it says that each line of a poem should be capitalized, and also that Western commas and periods should be used. So, I...

The word is only an example. I'd like to know if it's correct to write "shānzhài". I've read on Wikipedia that "shānzhài" is pinyin, i.e. "the official phonetic system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet in China". The same for Lianghui or...

Hi again, for a while I've been having difficulty hearing the /ŋ/ sound at the end of words whose final letters are _ang (for example, 漂亮). I only perceive a weak realization of a normal /n/ sound, which is far from the way it should be pronounced, according to what I've been taught. Can you...

Hi, I have got the following questionair about Chinese knowledge: 下列词语的拼写正确的是： A.回复 huípú B.中医 zhōnɡ ī C.工夫 ɡōnɡfu D.棋子儿qízǐer 答案：C I thought the right answer would be D, instead. Could you explain me why it's not?

Dear friends, I've just heard a recording in which the same girl, almost in a row, pronounces the name Wang in two different ways: with initial /w/ sound and with initial /v/ sound. Am I going nuts? Thanks in advance, G.

Hello everyone, From what I have heard from the Internet resources, z consonant sounds like English j except when it is used with some vowels like u or standing alone like zi. I wonder does z in zuo sound more like English Z like the word zoo? For example, I listened to the word 工作 from Forvo...

Hello, I don't know what is the right way to write the tones in pinyin when there is tone change or tone sandhi. For example, if I want to write 你好 in pinyin, the right way to write it in a formal document should be ni3hao3 or ni2hao3? Thank you in advance.

Hi, does anyone happen to know why 窘, 瓊, and 兄 are spelled as jiong, qiong, and xiong in Pinyin, rather than jüong, qüong, and xüong? The funny part is that jiong, qiong, and xiong are listed under the Group -ü-, not Group -i- in the Pinyin Table (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table).

líng seems to be pronounced with a "y" inserted right after the "l". míng, on the other hand, does not. Can a native speaker confirm that there is indeed a hidden y in líng?

The sounds represented by the Pinyin symbols x and sh do not exist in English. If I were to substitute the sound represented by the English "sh" in, say, both "xī" and "shī", and there were no context of any sort, would I be perceived as having uttered "xī" or "shī"? In other words, is ʃ sound...

I'm a Mandarin Chinese beginner, and I see that everytime they give you advice on how to read this language, they tell you to master the 4 tones. Learning the tones is not that hard, but when it comes to read them in sentences is confusing. Am I the only one who thinks that these 4 tones are not...

I see more and more names on my Facebook that I recognise to be written in pinyin. I consider that, of course, a good thing when I'm trying to learn Mandarin. Here are some random people, and forgive me if these names are unique because I know no way of telling so: Mengqiao Liu Lin Yu Cheng...

Hello! I wonder what are the most common ways to pronounce the Mandarin consonant series j, q, x in the non-Chinese speaking countries (by the news broadcasters as well as the common folk)? For example, when reading out the names of Chinese political leaders or Chinese place names? Thanks a lot!

Hi! In this thread it's been mentioned that the word zhou1 is pronounced as zou1 by some. I wonder how common is it to de-retroflex the consonants zh, ch, sh, r in Mandarin (I ask specifically about Mainland Mandarin, not the Taiwan variety, which doesn't use the retroflex much)? When do you do...

Hi everyone, I'm new to this corner of the universe, and I have a question. Some syllable tables list w and y as initials and some do not. What gives? Are they initials? Thanks.

音乐 vs 录音 Do Mandarin speakers insert a semi-vowel sound before the yin in luyin to help tie it to a preceding vowel? This semivowel sound should not be present in the yin of yinyue, although the Pinyin spelling may suggest such a pronunciation.

大家好, I have listened to various Chinese speakers and read different books and each one pronounces the "x" differently. For example in the words: 喜歡, 謝謝, 一下兒 Some people pronounce the sound more similar to an "s", while for others it resembles an "sh" sound. I would like to know if there is...

Well, maybe this will come as a shock to you, but the pronunciation of 不, 贵 and 大, three words that are extremely frequent in Chinese, does not tally at all with the pinyin transliteration you are familiar with, namely bu, gui and da (except in a few cases). Indeed, the initial consonant in...

I am looking for some feedback on Chinese pronunciation for English speakers. I am working on a basic language guide and want to include the best pronunciation possible. Some guides go with Pinyin and others go with intuitive pronunciation e.g. wǒ yǒ pyào (for I have a ticket). Any...

Hi! Can someone tell me how you pronounce "ji" in Chinese? Is it the same as in writing? I have a name Qiang Ji and I don't know how to pronounce it. Thanks in advance.

How do you get the accents on the vowels when you write in Pinyin? Can anyone tell me the "codes" for the four tones on each vowel please? 谢谢 :)