Mandarin Chinese--Lesson 2 (Chinese alphabet-Consonants)

Chinese Language--Lesson 2 (Consonants)

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Baixue’s Chinese Language Learning Program. Last time, we talked about what is pinyin and why you need pinyin. We also talked about that Chinese character has only one syllable and each syllable consists of initial (consontant) + final (vowel) + tone three parts.

Today, we are going to learn about Chinese language pinyin Consonant initials.

From this table, we can see that there are 23 consonant initials in Chinese language pinyin. Some of them are similar to English sounds, some are not. Please listen to me to pronounce these Consonants.

For consonants, I put all them into English words with the same or similar sound for you to learn and remember in an easier way.

Chinese pinyin consonants

	Chinese pinyin Consonants	Pronunciation of Consonants compared to that of in English
1	b	The pinyin initial “b” like “b” in English word “book”, but voiceless.
2	p	The pinyin initial “p” like “p” in English word “pool”, but invariably produced with a strong puff of air.
3	m	The pinyin initial “m” like “m” in English word “moon”.
4	f	The pinyin initial “f” like “f” in English word “for”.
5	d	The pinyin initial “d” like “d” in English word “door”.
6	t	The pinyin initial “t” like “t” in English word “talk”, but invariably produced with a strong puff of air.
7	n	The pinyin initial “n” like “n” in English word “no”.
8	l	The pinyin initial “l” like “l” in English word “like”.
9	g	The pinyin initial “g” like “g” in English word “good”.
10	k	The pinyin initial “k” like “k” in English word “kiss”, but invariably produced with a strong puff of air.
11	h	The pinyin initial “h” like “h” in English word “high”.
12	j	The pinyin initial “j” like “j” in English word “jeep”.
13	q	The pinyin initial “q” like “q” in English word “cheese”.
14	x	The pinyin initial “x” like “x” in English word “sharp”.
15	zh	The pinyin initial “zh” like “dge” in English word “ridge”. But the position of its articulation is the back of the tongue tip.
16	ch	The pinyin initial “ch” like “ch” in English word “rich”.
17	sh	The pinyin initial “sh” like “sh” in English word “bush”. But the position of its articulation is the back of the tongue tip.
18	r	The pinyin initial “r” like “r” in English word “red”. But the position of its articulation is the back of the tongue tip.
19	z	The pinyin initial “z” like “ds”  in English word “goods”, but voiceless.
20	c	The pinyin initial “c” like “ts” in English word “roots”, but invariably produced with a strong puff of air.
21	s	The pinyin initial “s” like “s” in English word “sun”.
22	y	The pinyin initial “y” like “y” in English word “yo-yo”.
23	w	The pinyin initial “w” like “w” in English word “wood”.

Ok, these are Chinese language pinyin consonants we need to learn today. Please read after me.

I know 23 consonants pronunciation is too much for you today, but just like I said in last class, take one bite at a time. So today’s homework is to practice the pronunciation of these 23 consonants and to compare them between Chinese and English and to find what the difference is. The more you practice, the better your pronunciation becomes.

 Ok, that is all for today. We will learn vowels in our next class.

xìe   xìe  (Thanks!)

谢    谢

zài  jiàn  (Bye! Or See you next time!)

再   见