Tag: mandarin

The Four Tones of Chinese

When talking about the differences between English and Chinese, the four tones of Chinese may be the most distinguish characteristic. The four tones of Mandarin are basic facets of the language for everybody learning the best way to speak Chinese. Mandarin Chinese, like most other Chinese dialects, is a tonal language, Which means that tones, like consonants and vowels, are used to distinguish words from one another. Mastering the tone of each character is challenging for many foreigners learning Chinese, but correct tonal pronunciation is vital for intelligibility because of the huge quantity of words in the language that only differ by tone (i.e. are minimal pairs with respect to tone). The following would be the four tones of Normal Mandarin.

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The Usage of Pinyin

Pinyin is adopted and used by all over the world nowadays. It superseded older romanization systems like Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1892) and Chinese Postal Map Romanization, and replaced zhuyin as the way of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland China. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for contemporary Chinese in 1982 (ISO 7098:1982, superseded by ISO 7098:1991); the United Nations followed suit in 1986. The government of Singapore also accepted this system, as well as the United States' Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and many other international institutions.

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History of Hanyu Pinyin

Every one who have learned Chinese must know pinyin. It's a basic learning tool of Chinese pronunciation. But just a little person clearly know where it comes from. This articles will show you the mysterious history of pinyin. Then you will know how it was created and how it changes.

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How to Correct Chinese Pronunciation

The tones of Mandarin Chinese are undoubtedly a challenge, but they can be learned with the proper approach. The one I propose is simple: consider a whole sentence and listen to it, try to figure out how it sounds as a whole without focusing on the tones. You’ll find that it is an efficient approach to acquiring tones in a natural way.

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