Pronunciation of pinyin consonants
When traveling to mainland China its easy to get confused by the system of writing Chinese words it Latin letters (the ABCs), called Hanyu Pinyin. This is because there are a few letters which are pronounced differently than they way we would naturally pronounce them in English. Interestingly, until now Taiwan has used two other methods of romanization called Wade-Giles Pinyin and Tongyoung Pinyin which don't use confusing letters and make it easier for non-native Chinese speakers to pronounce the words.
In the following video you will learn how to pronounce the consonants in mainland Chinese Hanyu Pinyin. I studied Chinese using this system and have always found it to be very practical. Once you master it you will even be able to write e-mails and instant messages to your Chinese friends!
The pronunciation of the following letters is the same as in English: B, P, M, F, D, T, N, L, G, K, H, CH, SH, W and Y.
Here are the more difficult letters are as follows and I go over them in the following video. This is my own way of explaining the pronunciations and I welcome readers comments on this subject.
J = D + French "Je"
Q = Ch, but not such a strong Ch
X = Combination of S and Sh
Zh = Slight D + French "Je"
R = like French "Je" and curl your tongue back.
Z = D + Z
C = T + S
Now we're ready to watch the video and go for it!
