Pronunciation
of Mandarin Chinese
The first Westerners who learned Chinese needed a way to
write down the sounds in their own alphabet, so that they
could study more effectively. It was a system of romanization
( representing a word or language, that uses a different
writing system, with our alphabet. First, they started with
the Wade-Giles system. The most familiar word in
the Wade-Giles system is Peking. Later, a different system
was developed to accurately reflect the way modern Mandarin
is spoken. This system is called pinyin.
Pinyin literally means "join together sounds,"
or "to spell." In pinyin, Peking is actually Beijing,
the capital of China.
The
next aspect of pronouncing Mandarin Chinese is tones. Tones
are inflections of voice, that is, controlling the pitch
of your voice. In English, we use tones to change the meaning
of a sentence, the most common example is a question, where
the pitch raises at the end. Other times, we use stronger
tones to indicate anger, sadness, or warning. Tones can
be more powerful than we give them credit for. Remember
when you mother would say, "Don't take that tone with
me!" Well, that's how important tones are in English.
In
Chinese, they are even more important as they control the
meaning of the word. Think of the word "sun."
We know what the sun is, but imagine changing the tone of
your voice while saying it and giving it an entire new meaning.
Flatten your voice and it means "rug." Dip your
voice and it means "to sing." Raise your pitch
and it turns into "green." This is exactly how
tones function in Chinese. Read here to learn how to say
tones.
