Cheltenham Mandarin School
By YingShi Helsby

你 好

Chinese 汉语 / 华语 / 中文
Standard Mandarin is a standardized form of spoken Han Chinese.
In Chinese: 汉语 Hàn yǔ / 华语 Huá yǔ / 中
文 Zhōng wén / 普通 话 Pǔ tōng huà /
Guó yǔ
Official language of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Singapore and United nation
Spoken by approx 1.3 billion people.

• Romanised Alphabet (25 letters of out of
26 are used, except letter ‘v’) and four accents over the letters indicate which of the 4 tones should be used. There are 6 basic vowels and 21 consonants in
Chinese Pinyin.
• A syllable always consists of a vowel or a consonant with a vowel. Vowels can stand by themselves when no initial consonant is present.

韵母
声母
The six initials (vowels) in
Pinyin pronunciation: a o e i u ü
The following finals (consonants): b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s zh, ch, sh and r http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Teomsfl-ylA

mā má mǎ mà ma
妈 麻 马 骂
Mother Hemp horse scold

Hanyu Pinyin Schema (published in 1958)
• Character Set.
– 25 characters, all from ‘a’ to ‘z’ except ‘ü’.
– (For easy to input on computer: ü is replaced by v.)
• Initial Set:
– b, p m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s
• Final Set:
– i, u, ü, a , ia, ua, o, uo, e, ie, eü, ai, uai, ei, uei,
– ao, iao, ou, iou, an, ian, uan, üan, en, in, uen, ün
– ang, iang, uang, eng, ing, ueng, ong, iong,
• Tone Annotation:
– mā , má, m ǎ , mà, ma
• Separator: '
– pi’ao

Pinyin VS. IPA

Basic rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (published in 1996)
1. Words are the basic units for spelling the Chinese Common
Language. (Space is used to separate Word)
– rén (person/people), péngyou (friend[s]), túshūguǎn
(library/libraries)
– wǒrén hé nóngmín (Workers and Farmers)
2. Structures of two or three syllables that indicate a complete concept are linked:
– quánguó (the whole nation), duìbuqǐ (sorry),
3. Separate terms with more than 4 syllables if they can be separated into words, otherwise link all the syllables:
– wúfèng gāngbǐ (seamless pen), Hóngshízìhuì (Red
Cross)

Basic rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (published in 1996)
4. Reduplicated monosyllabic words are linked, but reduplicated disyllabic words are separated:
– rénrén (everybody), chángshi chángshi (give it a try)
5. In certain situations, for the purpose of making it convenient to read and understand the words, a hyphen can be added:
– huán-bǎo (environmental protection), shíqī-bā suì (17 or 18 years old)

ǒ
Helsby
ǎ
。
我 叫
老 师
。

ǒ
。
我 叫
。

Mandarin has four tones with each tone indicated by a diacritical mark above a non-medial vowel.
Four tones: ā á ă à a
1. high
2. rising
3. falling rising
4. falling
5. a half tone mā má mă mà ma mother numb horse to scold or swear create a question

Chinese words of foreign origin
芭蕾 bā lěi ballet
拜拜 bài bài bye-bye
咖啡
酷 kā fēi kù coffe (café) cool
卡通 kǎ tōng cartoon
巧克力 qiǎo kè lì chocolate
高 尔 夫 gāo ěr fū golf

Chinese words of foreign origin
吉他 jí tā guitar
汉 堡包 hàn bǎo bāo hamburger
马 拉松 mǎ lā sōng marathon
奥林匹克 ào lín pǐ kè olympic
披 萨 pī sà pizza
三明治 sān míng zhì sandwich

• When a third tone syllable is followed by another third tone syllable, the first syllable change to second tone e.g.
hěn hǎo --> hén hǎo (very good) hǎo jiǔ -->háo jiǔ (good wine)
Hui-Ju Chuang

• When two forth tone syllables occur together, the first syllable will change to second tone
• But only apply to two words yì
(one) and bù (not)
• e.g. yì dìng --->yí dìng
(definitely) correct)

Shèng dàn kuài lè !
圣 诞 快 乐
!
Xīn nián hǎo !
新 年 好 !
Shēng rì kuài lè
生 日 快 乐
!