A brief introduction about Mandarin
Preface
Chinese is a language of great international importance in the present world of
globalization. Modern Chinese (also known as Mandarin, Pu3Tong1Hua4 or
Guo2yu3) is spoken in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, and increasingly
so in Hong Kong. It is one of the four official languages in Singapore.
There are significant communities of Mandarin speakers in USA, Mongolia,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the UK, Mauritius, South Africa, Brunei, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Russia, and Vietnam.
Mandarin is also spoken by about 1 billion people all over the world. It is also one
of the five official languages of the United Nations.
With the growing belief that 21st century belongs to China, learning Chinese will
improve employment opportunities in field of trade, tourism, business, education
etc. in the near future.
Why Learn Pinyin ?
For any Westerns who want a serious study of Mandarin, learning a Romanization
system is very important. Pinyin is the Romanization of the Chinese “writes sound”.
Romanization approximates Mandarin pronunciation with Western spellings and
includes a tone mark to signify at what pitch to say a word. This provides a phonetic
alphabet for Chinese, which otherwise would not have one. Without this, a non-
native would have an extremely difficult time learning the language.
The key to using Romanization is to use the letters as a reminder of what the
authentic sound is like. That may sound a little obvious; trying to sound it out from
the spelling alone doesn’t make for accurate Chinese. If followed as intended, the
letter combinations are very close to the Chinese sound and can help in learning
proper pronunciation.
However, Pinyin does not follow English letters exactly. While the symbols are
generally close to how they are used in English, they represent Chinese sounds. Be
sure and listen closely to each Chinese sound, it takes practice to pronounce
accurately.
For further inquiries, please contact
Mr. Mohd. Zuraihi bin Maaz at 012-736 5262
A brief introduction about Mandarin
Preface
Chinese is a language of great international importance in the present world of
globalization. Modern Chinese (also known as Mandarin, Pu3Tong1Hua4 or
Guo2yu3 ) is spoken in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, and increasingly
so in Hong Kong. It is one of the four official languages in Singapore.
There are significant communities of Mandarin speakers in USA, Mongolia,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the UK, Mauritius, South Africa, Brunei, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Russia, and Vietnam.
Mandarin is also spoken by about 1 billion people all over the world. It is also one
of the five official languages of the United Nations.
With the growing belief that 21st century belongs to China, learning Chinese will
improve employment opportunities in field of trade, tourism, business, education
etc. in the near future.
Why Learn Pinyin ?
For any Westerns who want a serious study of Mandarin, learning a Romanization
system is very important. Pinyin is the Romanization of the Chinese “writes sound”.
Romanization approximates Mandarin pronunciation with Western spellings and
includes a tone mark to signify at what pitch to say a word. This provides a phonetic
alphabet for Chinese, which otherwise would not have one. Without this, a non-
native would have an extremely difficult time learning the language.
The key to using Romanization is to use the letters as a reminder of what the
authentic sound is like. That may sound a little obvious; trying to sound it out from
the spelling alone doesn’t make for accurate Chinese. If followed as intended, the
letter combinations are very close to the Chinese sound and can help in learning
proper pronunciation.
However, Pinyin does not follow English letters exactly. While the symbols are
generally close to how they are used in English, they represent Chinese sounds. Be
sure and listen closely to each Chinese sound, it takes practice to pronounce
accurately.
For further inquiries, please contact
Mr. Mohd. Zuraihi bin Maaz at 012-736 5262