Mandarin Chinese/One/First Words

Mandarin Chinese | Lesson Two

This lesson you will learn:

• Some pinyin
• Pronouns

他她我你

Lesson

• Pinyin is a system for writing Chinese pronunciations with the English alphabet
• Initials- d t n l -are pronounced as in English
• -i is pronounced bee
• -a is pronounced father
• -uo is pronounced woah. It becomes "wo" when it has no initial
• -ü is pronounced as in German. For those not familiar with the sound, pronounce be with rounded lips. It loses the umlaut/two dots after j, q and x. It becomes "yu" when it has no initial
• Chinese is a tonal language and has 4 tones: flat, rising, falling, and change. Change is pronounced with your voice going down and back up. The four tones look as such, with "a" as an example
  • flat ā
  • rising á
  • falling à
  • change ǎ

Vocabulary

Chinese	Pinyin	English
我	Wǒ	I, me
你	Nǐ	You
他	Tā	He, him
她	Tā	She, her

Mandarin Chinese | Lesson Two