Pinyin

 What is Pinyin?

• Pinyin is the Romanization of Chinese characters based on their pronunciation.
• Pinyin literally translated into "spell sound".
• In other words,spelling out Chinese phrases with letters from English alphabet.
• Consist of three elements : initial,tone,final.

Initial

• Initial always put at the beginning of syllable.
• can use only one initial in a syllable.
• each initial is made up by 1 or 2 letters.
• there are 23 initials in total in Chinese. (23 + 2 ), 2 of 0 initials.

Final

• the final is put after the initial.
• we can only use one final in a syllable.
• a final can be a syllable by itself without the initial or the tone.
• each final is made up of one to four letters.
• there are 35 finals in Chinese.

Tone

• the tone notification mark is always added above final (to be specific,the vowel in the final)
• can only use one tone in a syllable.
• sometimes no tone is used.
• there are 4 tones in Chinese : first tone,second tone, third tone, fourth tone.
• refer to pitch in syllable : low pitch, mid-low pitch, middle pitch, middle high pitch, high pitch.