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Learn The Chinese Alphabet
Chinese language learning is more than just learning to Chinese writing. The pronunciation of a word makes the difference. Before we can start to teach you the different tones in Mandarin (Pinyin), it is helpful to learn the phonology of standard Chinese, or also called the Chinese Alphabet.
We created a video about different groups of letters, which are sorted by the way you produce the tone and how a similar sound. Furthermore, you will see that it is quite hard to differentiate between some sounds, like “j, q, x” or “zh, ch, sh” sometimes. Even if it seems very complicated at the beginning, you will get used to it by the time of practicing. And as it is in most languages: Listening/ Understanding is much easier than speaking.
Let’s have a look at the different groups of Chinese phonology
| A, e, i, o, u, ü,
b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l |
| g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s |
| zh, ch, sh, r, qi, ei ao, ou, an, en, ang, eng |
| ia, ie, in, ing, iao, ian, iang, iong, iu, er |
| ua, uai, uan, uang, un, ong, ueng, ui, uo, ün, üan, üe |
See how one of our professional tutors pronounces these letters – do you already get the differences?
The next step is learning Pinyin. Pinyin is a combination of Chinese phonology and so called “tonnes”. It allows you to learn how to pronounce Chinese characters – a guide to learn reading Chinese characters.
TutorMandarin offers a Pinyin Course, that teaches you all you need to know about Chinese pronunciation. Download our app to get access to our course material and more helpful articles and videos to learn Chinese language for free. Interested in your Chinese speaking level, or how good your speaking skills are? Sign up for a free trial to get a full language evaluation and a first impression in learning Chinese with TutorMandarin.
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