Pronunciation Guide to Chinese Pinyin

Confused by all the q's and x's and such you see in the Chinese words here? Read below for some clarification on how to pronounce Chinese words correctly.

"Pinyin," which in Mandarin Chinese literally means "combine sounds," or more accurately translated, "phoneticize" or "phonetization", is the standardly accepted way for transcribing Chinese characters in Roman script. It was created and approved by the government of the People's Republic of China in 1958 and adopted for general use in 1979. Prior to its creation, there were several other methods used for writing Chinese in Roman script, none of which were universally accepted as a standard system and thus resulted in competing methods (from these we got some alternate spellings of Chinese place names still commonly used today, such as "Peking" (written as "Beijing" in Pinyin), "Szechwan" ("Sichuan" in Pinyin), "Chunking" ("Chongqing" in Pinyin), "Tsingtao" ("Qingdao" in Pinyin), etc.--the pronunciation should be more or less the same for each, but the way of transcribing it is different). Pinyin replaced the older methods and gave a system which is the internationally accepted standard today.

It is important to note that Pinyin is a "romanization" and not an "anglicization"--it uses many letters and letter combinations in ways specific for Chinese pronunciation which do not necessarily correspond with the ways the letters are used in English. This is to account for sounds unique to Chinese, such as the two distinct ways (hard and soft) of pronouncing the sounds represented by "j," "ch," and "sh" in English. However, most letters and letter combinations roughly correspond with their English equivalents, with the following exceptions:

	Letter(s) in Pinyin	Pronunciation
Consonants	c	like the "ts" in "tsar" or "cats"
	q	like the "ch" in "chin" (a soft "ch" sound)
	r	sort of like a combination of the letters "l" and "r" (try to say "r" with your tongue curled up and touching the back of the roof of your mouth, and you'll almost have it)
	x	like the "sh" in "shock" (a soft "sh" sound)
	zh	like the "j" in "jump" (a hard "j" sound)
Vowels	ai	like the "i" in "high" (a long "i" sound)
	ao	like the "ow" in "cow"
	e	like the "e" in "her"
	ei	like the "ay" in "hay" (a long "a" sound)
	i	usually like the "ee" in "flee" when following the letters c, ch, r, s, sh, z, and zh: like the "e" in "the"
	ian	like the word "yen"
	iu	like the "yo" in "yolk"
	o	like the "o" in "more," said through rounded lips
	ou	like the "ou" in "dough" (a long "o" sound)
	u	usually like the "u" in "flute" (a long "u" sound) when following the letters j, q, and x: like ü (see below)
	ua	like the "wah" in "wah-wah pedal"
	uai	like the word "why"
	ui	like the word "way"
	uo	like the "wa" in "war"
	ü	like the "u" in the French word "tu," said through rounded lips

Here are some Chinese words (mostly place names) which I've used on this website and how to pronounce them (these can be figured out from the chart above):

• Lanzhou--pronounced "Lan-joe"
  (the provincial capital of Gansu Province, in central/northwest China)
• Xining--pronounced "Shee-ning"
  (the provincial capital of Qinghai Province, in northwest China)
• Qinghai--pronounced "Ching-high"
  (a province in northwest China)
• Pang Xingqier--pronounced "Pong-Sheeng-chee-arr"
  ("Fat Tuesday" in Chinese)
• Sichuan--pronounced "Suh-chwan"
  (a province in central/southwest China)
• Xinjiang--pronounced "Sheen-jeeyang"
  (a region in northwest China)
• Hangzhou--pronounced "Hong-joe"
  (the provincial capital of Zhejiang Province, in eastern China)
• Ningxia--pronounced "Ning-sheeya"
  (a region in central/northwest China)
• Xiahe--pronounced "Sheeya-huh"
  (a town in Gansu Province, in northwest China)
• Guangzhou--pronounced "Gwang-joe"
  (the provincial capital of Guangdong Province, in southeast China)
• Zhaoqing--pronounced "Jow-ching"
  (a city in Guangdong Province, in southeast China)
• Shenzhen--pronounced "Shen-jen"
  (a city in Guangdong Province, in southeast China)
• Guangxi--pronounced "Gwang-shee"
  (a region in southeast China)
• Guizhou--pronounced "Gway-joe"
  (a province in central/southeast China)
• Chongqing--pronounced "Chung-ching"
  (the city in central/southwest China where Lan Lan is from)

There are also four different speaking tones used in Mandarin Chinese (flat, rising, falling-rising, and falling), so that when different tones are used with the same sound, the meaning gets altered completely. In Pinyin these tones are designated by lines written over vowels, but I won't go into that here--you can refer to some of the links below if you'd like to know more:

• The Wikipedia introduction to Chinese Pinyin
  
• Pinyin Practice: A helpful page for students learning Chinese Pinyin
  
• A comprehensive breakdown (syllable by syllable) of the older Wade-Giles transliteration method vs. the modern Chinese Pinyin one
  
• More info on Chinese Pinyin than you can shake a stick at
  

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