UNIT II: CHINESE LANGUAGE

INTRODUCTION
Mandarin is the official language of China, and Taiwan. Although there are many
dialects, every Chinese person you meet will speak and understand Mandarin. It is officially
classified as a “difficult” language, but in some ways it is easier than English.
Mandarin is written in Chinese characters, which are not phonetic. In order to learn the
language we will use pinyin, a phonetic representation. Each Chinese character is
pronounced as a single syllable and represented phonetically as a pinyin syllable.
The main goal of the first ten lessons is learn pronunciation. Using a phonetic
representation, instead of characters, makes this easier to achieve.  In addition to
pronunciation, learning pinyin has other benefits as well: such as looking up words in a
dictionary and typing Chinese characters on a keyboard or mobile phone.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Familiarize the components of Chinese pinyin, which are the initials, finals and tone.
2. Know the proper usage of tone marks and the spelling rules.
3. Pronounce a syllable of the Mandarin language.
4. Differentiate between the components of Chinese Pinyin and English alphabet.

1
Central Activity
Learning Input No. 1
Chinese Language

漢語 汉语 hàn yǔ Chinese Language

Chinese or Chinese language refers to the languages being used in China as a whole. It is
classified into 7 major dialects, it includes Standard Chinese/Chinese Mandarin and the different
dialects.

Chinese Mandarin is the most common dialect used in China. It also called pǔ tōng huà (普通
话)。

Chinese Character are the symbols used to write the Chinese Language. It is also called Hànzì
汉 字 . There are two (2) types of Chinese Characters. The Simplified (jiǎn tǐ zì 简 体 字 ) and
Traditional (fán tǐ zì 繁 体 ) Chinese Characters. The Traditional Chinese Characters refers to
Chinese text written using traditional Chinese characters. In the 1950’s, Mainland China's
communist government began reforming the writing system by simplifying Chinese characters.
The process of simplification reduced the number of strokes needed to write each character. This
was supposed to make characters easier to learn and quicker and easier to write. The characters
the simplification process produced which often used in mainland China are called simplified
characters, or 简体字 (jiǎntǐzì).

Chinese Pinyin
 a phonetic system of Chinese language.
 a form of spelling used as a medium for representing the Chinese Language.
 used as an aid in teaching the national language.
 Consists of initial, final and tone.

2
 Learning Input No. 2
Pinyin: Chinese Phonetic System

1. Shēng mǔ (Initial)
 consonant at the beginning of a syllable.
 consists of 21 initials.
 *zero initial (língshēngmǔ “Ø”) is not included e.g y,w, it is a Chinese syllable
having no initial consonant.

Initials
b p m f + “o”
d t n l
+ “e”
g k h
j q x
+ “i”
z c s
zh ch sh r + “r”

Pronunciation of the Initials

Unaspirated Aspirated

b p m f
（pen） （peace） （mom） （fate）
d t n l
（top） （tea） （nice） （love）
g k h
（game） （kite） （hen）
j q x
（jeep） （cheek） （she）
z c s
（birds） （cats） （son）
zh ch sh r
（joke） （church） （shirt） （run）

3
2. Yùn mǔ (Finals)
 vowel at the end of a syllable
 consists of 36 finals, divided into 3 groups (Simple finals, Compound Finals,
Nasal Finals).

Finals
a o e i u ü er
ai ei ao ou
ia ie ua uo üe
iao iou（iu uai uei（ui
） ）
an en in ian uan uen üan ün
ang eng ing iang uang ueng ong iong

Pronunciation of the Finals

i u ü
a ia ua
o uo üe
e ie
er
ai uai
ei uei (ui)
ao iao
ou iou (iu)
an ian uan üan
en in uen (un) ün
ang iang uang
eng ing ueng
ong iong

2.1 Simple Finals

Finals Description
a ant
o off
e alert
i He or the letter E in English Alphabet
u who
ü (i + u) or say “ee” with rounded lips

4
 er December

2.2 Compound Finals

Finals Description Finals Description Finals Description
ai eye ia yummy iao i + ao
ei say ie yet ; yes iou i + ou
ao cow ua warm uai u + ai
ou so uo won uei u + ei
üe Combine ü and e (open)

2.3 Nasal Finals

Finals Description Finals Description
an fan ang slang
en learn eng En + g
in pin ing thing
ian yen iang yang
uan want uang wang
uen w + en ueng W + eng
üan ü + an ong song
ün ü + en iong yong

3. Shēng diào (Tones)

 Tones are the characteristics of Chinese language.
 There are 4 special tones and a neutral tone.
 Tones play a very important role in Chinese. Each Chinese character has one tone, and the
Chinese language has a total of four tones as well as one neutral tone. The same syllable
with a different tone may have a different meaning.

5
 Tones
First Tone yīnpínɡ High and level sound, mā
(level tone) naturally prolonged.
Second Tone yánɡpínɡ Rising tone, from low to high,
(rising tone) just like the pitch in question. má

Third Tone shànɡshēnɡ First falling and then going up

(falling-rising again. mǎ
tone)
Fourth Tone qùshēnɡ Total falling tone which starts
(falling tone) out very high and falls short mà
and strong.
Neutral Tone qīngshēng Pronounced very light and Toneless ma
quick

Syllable mā má mǎ mà ma
Meaning Mother Fiber Horse Curse Question
mark

Tongue twister:

māma qí mǎ, mǎ màn, māma mà mǎ

妈妈骑马，马慢，妈妈骂马
Mother is riding a horse, when the horse is slow, mother curses it.

6
 Learning Input No. 3
Rules in Finals and in Putting Tone Mark

1. Rules in Finals
1) When the final “i” forms a syllable by itself, add “y” before the letter “i”. But if it is being
followed by another vowel replace “i” to “y”.
i → yi
i→y ia → ya
ie → ye

2) When the final “u” forms a syllable by itself, add “w” before the letter “u”. But if it’s being
followed by another vowel simply replace “u” to “w”.
u → wu
u→w ua → wa
uo → wo

3) When the final “ü” forms a syllable by itself, add “y” before the vowel “ü” and remove the
two dots.
ü → yu
ü → yu üe → yue
üan → yuan

4) When the final “ü” forms a syllable with initials “j, q, x”, simply remove the two dots.
→ ju
j,q,x + ü → qu
→ xu

5) If “iou”, “uei” and “uen” go with initials

A. remove the “o” of “iou”.
iou →niu
iou → diu

B. remove the “e” of “uei”.

uei → zui
uei → gui

C. remove the “e” of “uen”.

7
 uen → kun
uen → lun

2. Rules in Putting Tone Mark

1) If there is only one vowel in the final, write the tone mark on its vowel.
Ex. mā hé jīn hóng píng

2) If there are more than two vowels appear in a syllable, just follow its pitch
order:

a→o→e→i→u→ü
Ex. hǎo zài xiè méi duō

3) When “i” and “u” are in the same syllable, the tone mark should be written in
the second vowel.
Ex. liù jiǔ duì

4) When writing tones above the final “i”, just simply remove the dot.
Ex. yī jīn jīn