Welcome!
This
web site helps Mandarin speakers, native, semi-native, or non-native,
learn Hanyu Pinyin, a Mandarin phonetic transcription system
using a modified Latin alphabet. Given that these learners already speak
Mandarin, exemplification is prioritized over explanation.
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Hanyu
Pinyin (º~»y«÷µ),
often abbreviated as Pinyin («÷µ;
"spelling
sounds" literally), is the most widely used
Mandarin romanization system: P. R. China and Singapore, and
many other countries as well. The Library of Congress uses Pinyin
to catalog its collection in Chinese, most contemporary dictionaries
use Pinyin to spell out Chinese characters, and the vast majority
of Chinese textbooks published overseas use Pinyin, to name
just a few. (Learn more about different systems of Mandarin phonetic
transcription at Omniglot.)
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Advice
on Learning Approach
Just
like "cultural" is pronounced differently in French and English,
"can" symbolizes different sounds in Mandarin and English
-- the sounds represented by a certain letter are not always the same
in different languages. Therefore, when learning Pinyin, instead
of referring to the English pronunciation of each letter, you should
try to establish a direct connection between a certain letter, or sequence
of letters (like "sh", "ang", etc.) and the exact
Mandarin sound represented. In other words, using Chinese characters
as reminders of sounds represented by Pinyin
letters will be much more sensible since you already know the
Mandarin sounds.
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About
Exercises in This Site
Exercises will open in a new
window so that you can check the relevant information when necessary.
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About
Characters in This Web Site
Complex
characters are used because most people who use simplified characters
know Hanyu Pinyin.
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The
Computer and the Browser
For
best results, use a PC, and
upgrade to Internet
Explorer 6 for PC or Netscape
7.01. The
encoding of your browser should be "Western
European (ISO)" or "Traditional Chinese (Big5)",
although the latter disallows some browsers to show Pinyin
letters with tone marks. The animations work well with Internet
Explore 5, but not earlier versions of Netscape. And some pages
may take a while to load.
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