Chinese language skills for Britain: Disseminating Best Practice

1. Pinyin pronunciation      (Pinyin exercises)

This section explains Pinyin pronunciation for Mandarin. Many Chinese dictionaries use Pinyin index for Chinese characters.

2. Character writing

This section describes the radicals and stroke orders of Chinese characters. Some Chinese dictionary have radical index for Chinese characters. Watch the animations of how the characters are written.

3. How to look up words, or groups of characters

This section tells you how to look for a word in a Chinese dictionary.

1. Pinyin pronunciation    

A. Vowels

a [a:]

It sounds like the noise you would make when your doctor is examining the inside of your mouth. Open your mouth wide and say: “aah”.

o [o:]

Push your lips forward and make your mouth into a small circle, with your tongue in the bottom of your mouth. Don’t forget to leave a hollow space in your mouth, then say: “o”.

e [¶]

This sound is similar to the one you would make if you saw something really disgusting: “egh” or “er”.

ê [e]

This vowel is only used with other vowels. It is similar to “e” in the word “red”.

i [i:]

Pull your lips slightly back and push your tongue up towards the hard palate without touching it. It is similar to the “ea” sound in “squeak”.

u [u:]

Push your mouth forward and make a narrow gap for the air to go though, vibrating slightly. 

ü

It is similar to the umlaut “ü” in German. Say an “yu” sound through pushed lips.  

 Some irregular features  

When the vowel e is next to the vowels i and ü, it should be pronounced ê. Let's read the following 3 examples in the first tone.

1          ei [êi]      2      ie [iê]     3       üe [üê]

There are two combined-vowels that are written in an abbreviated form. 

 iu (iou)                  ui (uei)

 B. Consonants

 The following consonants:  p, f, t, k, h, q, x, c, s, ch and sh are aspirated sounds. If you put your palm in front of your mouth when you are reading out these letters, you will feel the air being exhaled. Read the following consonants after me in the first tone - you will be practising your vowels as well.

Close your teeth, but not too tight. Put your tongue behind them when you read the following letters, so that the air can come out in front of your teeth.

C. Groups

D. Rules for writing, and for reading out loud

If a word begins with the letter "u", then "u"should be replaced with "w". For example, the written form of uang is wang.

The written form of ia is ya, and the written form of üe is yue.

The vowel u after the consonants j, q and x should be pronounced ü.  In other words, there is no u sound after j, q and x in Mandarin pronunciation.

There is no ü sound after the consonants z, c, s, h, r, zh, ch, and sh in Mandarin pronunciation.

In written Pinyin the letter “i” is placed after z, c, s, zh, ch, sh and r.  It has no sound but is used as a vehicle for indicating the 5 tones. N.B. the consonant “i”  here should NOT be pronounced: for example the word zhi should be read as “zh” in the fourth tone.

Write down the following Pinyin in the correct form and read it out loud.

1  ū iā               2  uéng ián                    3  ǜ uàng                      4  üàn   ì

__________    _____________          ____________            ___________

5  ú ǚ                 6  ǚ iè                           7  uāng iáng                  8  ŭ ì

_________      __________                ______________        _________

9  ún ì               10   ǚ  ún                        11  īng ŭ                       12  ì ù

_________    __________        ______________   _________

E. Listen to the following words and find the meanings in the dictionary

1. zhè er           2. méiyŏu         3. wàiguó         4. shū

1. jīntiān           2. chá               3. zìdiăn

1. míngtiān        2. zuò               3. liànxí

1. fángjiān         2. hěn               3.zāng

F. Simple expressions

nĭhăo                            你 好  [you good]                    Hello

xièxie                           谢 谢   [thanks thanks] Thanks

zàijiàn                          再 见   [again see]                    See you again, goodbye

wŏ shì xuéshēng         我 是 学 生 [I am student]       I’m a student

nĭ shì lăoshī                 你 是 老 师 [you are teacher]  You are a teacher

2. Character writing

A. Radicals and components

The following radicals will appear in the characters used in this lesson, as shown in blue in the column of the examples. If you place your mouth on the characters in blue, the meanings of the characters will appear on your screen. The numbers in the first column are the reference numbers for the radical index  of "A Chinese -English Dictionary".

*Only the top part is the radical. See examples.

B. Stroke order

 The aim of these exercises is to practice the essential skills of character writing. Stroke order is taught in a visual, interactive way with demonstrations, sound and tests. To start the exercise, click on the character.

 我    是    你    不    小    在    的     

C.  How to look up individual characters

1. Count the number of strokes in the radical of the character 村 (here 4 strokes in 木).

2. Look up the radical number in the radical index

3. Go to the corresponding number in the radical list, here 木 94.

4. Count the number of strokes in the rest of the character (excluding the radical itself).  In 村 the right hand side is 寸, which has 3 strokes. The character 村 is under the 三 画 three strokes sub-section.

5. Go to the page indicated next to the character 村, here page 117.

Characters that are proper names have to be searched for individually.

3. How to look up words, or groups of characters

·    Count the number of strokes (here 4 in 木) in the radical of the first character, 村, in 村 子.

·    Look up the radical number in the radical index.

·    Go to the corresponding number in the radical list, here 木 94.

·    Count the number of strokes in the rest of the character (excluding the radical itself).  In 村 the right hand side is 寸, which has 3 strokes. The character 村 is under the 三 画 three strokes sub-section.

·    Go to the page indicated next to the character 村, here page 117.

·    On page 117, under the character list for 村, look for the relevant grouping of characters, here 村 子.