Lesson 3 - Syllables (Initials - Part 2)

Have you got your tongue twisted enough?  If not, let's continue.

Let's go into the more difficult consonants.  These might be a bit difficult for some Westerners because some of the sounds cannot be found in the English language.

J(i) - Sounds like Jee.

Q(i) - This is a little tricky.  Teeth closed.  Tongue slightly touch the roof of the mouth.  Sounds like 'Chi'.  

X(i) - Sounds like 'Sea' or 'See'.

Z(i) - Sounds like Zzzzz.
C(i) - Sounds like 'Cist' without the 'st'.
S(i) - Sounds like Sssss but don't drag.

Zh(i) - This is a bit complicated.  Sounds like 'Chew' or 'Jew' except the sound is thinner.
Ch(i) - Sounds like 'Chose' without the 'Ose"
Sh(i) - Sounds like Shhhhh.

R(i) - Sounds like when you roll your tongue doing the Rrrrr.  The tongue touch the roof of the mouth with the mouth opening slightly.

I will try to see if there are any Youtube available and put a link there for your to hear the sounds.  These are a little difficult to describe.

I am sure by now your tongue is fully twisted, because mine is!  

Lesson 2: Syllables (Initials - Part 1)

In Chinese Mandarin, there are 21 consonant sounds and 6 basic vowel sounds that we need to know.  When we put 1 consonant and 1 vowel together, then it will form a Chinese word.  For example, B + a = 'Ba'.  'Ba' can be the letter eight or father and so on, depends on the tone of the sound, which we will learn after we finish the syllables.  The consonants are known as Initials.

So, it is very important to memorise the syllables.  There's no other way to it except memory works.  Here goes:

B(o) - sounds like Ball

P(o) - sounds like Pall

M(o) - sounds like More

F(o) - sounds like Fore or Four or For

To pronounce this, your lips need to open and close in quick succession.

You can add an 'O' at the back in order to help you to pronounce these consonants better, i.e Bo, Po, Mo, Fo.  The tone used here is neutral as we are learning the basics now, so let's not go too deep into the tonal marks yet.  So the sound should be short and high.  Do not drag the sound to make it long.

D(e) - sounds like Duh

T(e) - sounds like The

N(e) - no similar sound in English, but it is like in 'Nerd' without the RD.

L(e) - no similar sound in English, but it is like in 'Let' without the T.

For these sounds, your tongue need to be behind your teeth.  You can add an 'E' to pronounce better, i.e De, Te, Ne, Le.  Be careful not to add 'R' behind these or it will be incorrect.

G(e) - sounds like Girl without the R sound.

K(e) - no similar sound in English, but it is like in 'Cute', the 'kur' sound.

H(e) - sounds like Her without the R sound.  Be careful, this is not the English word 'He'.  Different sound.

For these sounds, the tongue doesn't touch the teeth.  It is like a sound when you are coughing.

OK, we have completed the 11 basic consonant sounds.  Please take note, the vowels behind the consonants that I have put in bracket are actually to help you to pronounce and it is not used in the writing.  

Practise, practise, practise!

P/S:  When I told my friends who learned Chinese while in Chinese school that I was learning the BoPoMoFo way, they were like, 'No way you are learning that because we are not learning that even in school and it is super difficult.'  Later I found out that the Chinese in China has created a way to teach syllables to children using the way I have described above.  Before this, BoPoMoFo is a phonetic system for transcribing Chinese in terms of strokes and characters.  It is still being used in Taiwan.

Lesson 1: Pinyin 拼音

First, we must know what is Pinyin 拼音.  According to Wikipedia, Pinyin (Chinese: 拼音; pinyin: pīnyīn; [pʰín ín]) or formally Hanyu Pinyin (simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: Hànyǔ Pīnyīn) is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script in the People's Republic of China,Republic of China (Taiwan),^[1] and Singapore and Malaysia too.

Pinyin is to help you to pronounce the Chinese words by romanization of the Chinese characters.  It will help you to say Chinese words but not help you to recognise the Chinese character.  That you will need to memorise bit by bit.  

So, you can speak but you cannot read.  You can understand through listening, but you will not be able to write.  For those who would just want to communicate through Chinese and does not want to learn how to read or write, then Pinyin will be sufficient.  

But if you travel to China where everything is in Chinese, then reading and writing is very useful.

You may read more about Romanization of the Mandarin Chinese at Wikipedia to understand more.  

Just a brief history about Mandarin Chinese.  In China, Singapore and Malaysia, the Chinese character has been simplified, meaning the strokes are lesser and easier to memorise.  Meanwhile in Taiwan and Hong Kong, they are still using the traditional Chinese character.

Since I learned the simplified way, this is how it will be shown here in the blog, the simplified version.  

That's all for now.  Next lesson, we will learn about the Chinese Syllable.  

P/S:  I will try to post once a week as I am still learning on a weekly basis.  Please bear with the speed.  Thank you!