How Chinese Works: Characters, Syllables and Pinyin
What you're actually learning: one spoken language (Mandarin), written in characters, with pinyin as the pronunciation guide.
Mandarin, characters and pinyin
"Chinese" here means Mandarin (普通话, pǔtōnghuà, "the common speech"), the national standard of mainland China and Taiwan and the most widely spoken first language on Earth.
Mandarin is written in characters (汉字, hànzì). Each character is one syllable and usually carries a meaning of its own: 人 (rén) is "person," 大 (dà) is "big." Most words are one or two characters long: 中国 (Zhōngguó) is "China," literally "middle country."
Characters don't spell out their sound, so learners (and Chinese schoolchildren) use pinyin: the official way of writing Mandarin sounds in the Latin alphabet. Pinyin is a pronunciation guide, not a replacement for characters -- but it's how you'll read every new word in this course before you know its character, and how you can type Chinese on any phone or computer.
Quick check
1. What does one Chinese character usually stand for?
The parts of a syllable
Every Mandarin syllable has up to three parts: an initial (the consonant at the start), a final (the vowel part, sometimes ending in -n or -ng), and a tone (the pitch the whole syllable is said with).
Take 妈 (mā, "mom"): the initial is m, the final is a, and the tone mark ¯ says to hold a high, level pitch. Some syllables have no initial at all, like 爱 (ài, "love").
Mandarin has only about 400 distinct syllables before tones -- far fewer than English. Tones multiply them, which is why they matter so much: mā (mom) and mà (to scold) are different words.
Quick check
1. Match each part of the syllable mā to what it is.
Simplified characters
This course uses simplified characters, the standard in mainland China and Singapore. Taiwan and Hong Kong use traditional characters, which keep older, more complex forms: 马 (mǎ, "horse") is 馬 in traditional.
The spoken language is the same either way, and pinyin is identical. Once you know simplified characters, traditional ones are very learnable later.
Try it yourself
Write a sentence or two using what this lesson covered. Not graded -- just for you, saved so you can come back to it.
Pick with a tap, a number key or Space. A Chinese keyboard on your device works in the box below too.
Final review
0/10 answered across this lesson
1. What is pinyin?
2. Which are parts of every Mandarin syllable's description? (Choose all that apply.)
Select all that apply.
3. 中国 (Zhōngguó) means "China." How many syllables does it have?
4. Match the character to its meaning.
5. Why do tones matter so much in Mandarin?
6. Which writing standard does this course use?
7. Listen, then record yourself saying it.
你好
Tip: Say it smoothly, like one word.
8. Type the pinyin (marks or numbers).