Is there any alternative to English pinyin to learn how to pronunce Chinese words?

[Patrick_ChineseForum]

Hi. I'm a total newbie who is interested in learning Chinese (sorry if my question sounds dumb). I notice that Pinyin is used to show the pronunciation of Chinese words. Even though I never learn Chinese, I heard my grandparents (they migrated from China during World War 2) spoke Chinese from time to time and knew a very tiny bit about what some words suppose to sound like. For example, I would say Jung Kuo Lern for the word "Chinese". However when I opened a Chinese English dictionary, the pinyin showed Zhōng​guó​rén (中国人)! Wow I would never guess that Zhong should be pronounced as Jung. Where is the Z sound in this character (中)?

I used to study Japanese Kanji. Hiragana characters were put on the side/top to show how the characters should be pronounced. Does Chinese have something similar to that? I guess I'm looking for a more precise sound representation than Pinyin. Please advice.

Thanks,

Patrick

[OneEye]

There's nothing imprecise about pinyin, you just have to learn how to pronounce it, the same as you would with any new language. You can't expect to be able to pronounce French just because you already know the alphabet. Same deal here. Learn how pinyin works, and you'll be fine. It's the standard romanization in both Mainland China and Taiwan, so it's pretty much unavoidable. It's also used in pretty much every dictionary you'd likely want to use. It isn't difficult to learn, you just have to actually sit down and learn it.

If you really want another system, there's Zhuyin Fuhao (also called Bopomofo), but if you're trying to learn using only that, you're going to severely limit which resources you can use. Best to learn both.

[fanglu]

Also, bear in mind that your grandparents may not have been speaking Mandarin Chinese. That would explain why the words in your dictionary are different from how you remember your grandparents saying them.

(null)

[renzhe]

You won't find a more "precise" representation than Hanyu Pinyin. There are more than a dozen romanization methods for Chinese, and they are all more or less equally precise, allowing you to accurately represent Mandarin pronunciation -- after you learn them! All of them have their quirks and peculiarities that seem strange to native speakers of English (but also other languages).

The trick is not to think of them as "English" and guess what it should sound like, but to learn it as a separate system, like when you learn French or German or Portuguese, where the same letters are pronounced differently. It only takes a short time before you are comfortable. For example, "zh" represents a sound similar to "j" in "jungle". The Pinyin "j" represents a softer version of the same. It is very important to learn the exact sounds, and not the English approximations.

There is something similar to Furigana you learned in Japanese, it's called Zhuyin fuhao or bopomofo, but it has fallen out of use in most places. It is still used for teaching pronunciation in Taiwan and there are dictionaries using it. Some people like it because it does not remind them of English (or other languages), so they don't have this interference in their minds.

Other transcription methods include Wade-Giles, the most common system before Pinyin, which is very relevant for Sinologists and historians, and Taiwanese Tongyong Pinyin, an answer to Hanyu Pinyin which came from the mainland, but the latter has never really caught on and has already been abandoned. Further systems are all irrelevant today and there are no useful resources using them, so don't bother.

There is a very long thread on the benefits and downsides of zhuyin here, with strong opinions both way. Might want to read through that.

[jbradfor]

I notice that Pinyin is used to show the pronunciation of Chinese words.

As others have indicated, your assumption is wrong. Pinyin is not intended to be a system of transliteration from Chinese to English.

Back to your question, however, the closest I know of is actually Yale Romanization. However, even that, if you try to pronounce texts written using Yale Romanization as if it were English, you will still have a horrible Mandarin accent. In addition, except for very old textbooks, no resources use them.

I would say Jung Kuo Lern for the word "Chinese".

Most certainly not standard Mandarin. You should ask your parents what part of China your grandparents came from, seems you could learn more about your family history.

[Patrick_ChineseForum]

Thank you everyone for spending time educating me. I don't know that I'm not suppose to think of pinyin as English --> thanks to Renzhe for this trick (I guess his name is pronounced "renje"). It seems like everyone agrees that pinyin is the best method to learn to pronounce Chinese words. I'll look around to find pinyin tutorial on the net. So, basically I should learn pinyin before learning Chinese, right?

The Bopomofo word sounds very familiar. I think my mom used to learn that in Chinese school decades ago. She told me that over twenty years ago. It's funny how it comes back to live when you guys mentioned about it. :-) Yes, most of my grand parents don't speak Mandarin. However I learn that word (Zhōng​guó​rén) from the one who speaks Mandarin. I just didn't type it correctly (the pinyin way).

Thank you,

Patrick

[Iriya]

Here's a pretty good pinyin tutorial, with audio and comparison to the English pronunciation.

[imron]

The Bopomofo word sounds very familiar.

Bobomofo can be a misleading word however, because when learning Pinyin, you typically also start with the bo po mo fo sounds. So 'bopomofo' could very well sound familiar to anyone who's learnt some Chinese because these are among the first few sounds you will encounter, and don't necessarily have anything to do with the Zhuyin Fuhao method of transcribing the sounds of Chinese. I certainly recall doing bo po mo fo/de te ne le, drills well before knowing anything about Zhuyin Fuhao.

[Shelley]

Hello, I would not learn pinyin before you learn chinese, learn it as you go along with the characters. i am a great beliver in starting with pinyin and characters and learn it all at the same time. it might be usefull to learn the sounds and the basics of pinyin first but then put it together with characters.. Remember pin yin is only a way of showing you the pronunciation of the character. it is not really a language on its own. Also you should avoid useing pronunciations of your own as this will confuse you later. ie: you said "Ren Zhe ..I guess it is pronounced Ren je" zh is actually slightly different to j. its more like dj. Have a look at the good links people have supplied above, and learn it afresh. Good luck Shelley

[jbradfor]

Yes, most of my grand parents don't speak Mandarin. However I learn that word (Zhōng​guó​rén) from the one who speaks Mandarin. I just didn't type it correctly (the pinyin way).

I don't want to harp on this too much, but I would suggest you don't get too hung up on how exactly how your grandparent pronounced words. While it's great that you've had some exposure to Mandarin, you should focus on learning standard Mandarin, even if sounds different than what you remembered. I think you'll find pinyin a bit closer to how words are pronounced than you remember.

[Patrick_ChineseForum]

iriya: Thank you for the link. I just briefly visited the site. It looked really helpful. :-)

imron: Thanks for further explanation.

shelly: I really love your response ("I would not learn pinyin before you learn chinese, learn it as you go along with the characters"). ^_^ Many years ago when I learned English (as second language), I never bothered to learn phonetic. I simply memorized how to pronounce words. After knowing enough English words, I recognized the patterns and could pronounce words that I've never seen before (like spelling bee kids :-) However Chinese seemed to be somewhat more complex. Even though my ears could tell the different between the four tones, it was hard to memorize it without writing it down. Shelly, how did you deal with this problem?

Guys, do you learn pinyin before Chinese or do you learn both of them at the same time as Shelly suggested? (just curious)

Thanks,

[renzhe]

My personal opinion is that you should go through the entire pinyin chart with a native speaker for a while before you do anything else. All possible syllable, using all four tones, until you can hear the difference and pronounce each of them relatively well. This is my advice to everyone beginning to learn Mandarin, and I'm glad that my first teacher did this with us. It cleared up all the potential misunderstandings about pinyin, and was important for learning sounds that are very specific to Mandarin and which were new for me -- like the last "e" in renzhe.

Doing this will save you from a million problems later, and should only take you a week of two of practice. Pinyin is MUCH easier than English spelling, and you will pick it up very quickly, as long as you learn it and listen to correct pronunciation as you learn.

[Shelley]

ah yes ..tones:) My advice and the way i approach it is to learn it as part of the character. in other words the tone is not a seperate thing, it is how the word is pronounced. It's hard to explain, but I learn the tone with character.

On occasion when the tone changes (which you will learn about) then I learn it as a 2 tone word (word meaning 2 or 3 characters that go together to mean one specific thing)

Learning chinese is all about practice, practice and more practice:) Do as much speaking, writing and reading as you can.

Go for 20mins learning, 10mins off then 20mins learning etc. Don't get too intense as you will get tired and make mistakes, and it harder to unlearn a mistake:)

Use a wide variety of learning materials to keep it fresh and interesting.

If you have a phone, tablet or handheld device that is compatible, getting a copy of Pleco would be one of the things I would consider a really good investment. Start with the basic paid package and later if you need it you can upgrade.

Above all enjoy it:)

I learn for pleasure, so this how I do it. There are as many learning methods as there are people learning, so you will find one that suits you.

Enjoy

Shelley

P.S. I agree with RenZhe comments above. Learn the basics well, first.

[jkhsu]

My personal opinion is that you should go through the entire pinyin chart with a native speaker for a while before you do anything else.

I completely agree with renzhe's comment above. I actually don't agree with Shelley's comment to "not learn pinyin before you learn chinese, learn it as you go along with the characters" because I think you will end up in situations where your pinyin is off and you apply that mistake to other characters; thus propagating your mistakes. Spend the time with a native Mandarin speaker (or someone with good Mandarin pronunciation) to go over the pinyin chart. Another bit of advice, although the pinyin chart is written using the alphabet, do not assume they sound like English. The best way to learn good pronunciation is to associate pinyin direclty to how a native speaker would say those sounds, not with another English sound.

Personally, I'd rather avoid associations like the pinyin "zh" sounds like English "j" when you begin learning Chinese. Once you get the proper pronunciations out of the way, you can decide for yourself if pinyin sounds like something else.

My advice and the way i approach it is to learn it as part of the character. in other words the tone is not a seperate thing, it is how the word is pronounced. It's hard to explain, but I learn the tone with character.

I agree with Shelley on this approach. Most of the time, the character will have the same tone when combined with another character in a different word. Once you know the proper tone and pronunciation for a character, it's easier to learn other words with that character in it. Some characters will have more than one pronunciation and meaning, but you'll figure out the differences once you see them in context (as you get better at Chinese).

[Patrick_ChineseForum]

Renzhe, Shelley, jkhsu: thank you for sharing your learning experience. Yes I can see the problems of not knowing how to read pinyin correctly and accumulating wrong pronunciation of Chinese words over time. Ok, mastering pinyin is a prerequisite before learning Chinese then. Thanks a lot guys!

[Michaelyus]

If you do want to learn a particular accent of Mandarin without having to adopt a standard pronunciation, then you might have to wise up to how either Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao maps to the pronunciation you want to learn.

For example, pronouncing Pinyin "r" as a Pinyin "l" is very common in a lot of Chinese accents originating in Fujian (I also hear it sporadically in colloquial Shanghai Mandarin). "Dropping the h" from "ch, zh, sh" is also another very common pronunciation. A less radical version of that is to change the standard pronunciation of "ch, zh, sh" into something that's a little closer to "c, z, s" but still different: apparently a lot of Taiwanese and Singaporeans have this 'variant'. Dropping the final "r" of "er" is also a feature of some accents, and the vowel that's left is often different to the standard "er" (it's usually roughly the same as "e" I find). The actual realisation "h" is not always the sound given by the IPA [x]; I generally go for [h]. I find my own speech has a slightly alternative pronunciation for Pinyin "-ie" and "-ian" (in IPA, standard [ɪɛ(n)] becomes my [ɪ(n)]), and I don't think I do the whole [iou]/[iu] tonal alternation thing. Learning the Pinyin, and then learning an extra bit of conversion, makes it possible to keep to the accent you can learn off a native speaker while still being able to use resources designed for standard Mandarin.

This doesn't take into account certain idiosyncratic features that come from the characters themselves that have merged in Pinyin (there's something called a checked tone that standard Mandarin doesn't have and so Pinyin and Zhuyin Fuhao don't need to show it; it usually results in some characters are pronounced with glottal stops at the end, in the accents that have it. This can mean that some characters that sound the same in standard Mandarin do not sound the same in this accent, e.g. 八 and 巴 are not the same in such an accent, but they share the same Pinyin). That means you might miss certain features of your "native speaker's" accent.

If you do have a patient native speaker with a lot of time to spare, you can get them to pronounce all the characters that can represent the system individually and then start associating the pronunciations given with the Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao. It will get you acquainted with the range of sounds available in the accent of Mandarin Chinese of that native speaker. E.g. on the Chinese Wikipedia page for 汉语拼音 (Pinyin) there's a list of characters for each initial consonant (under 声母) and for each final (i.e. the vowel and the final consonant, under 韵母). Start associating the Pinyin or Zhuyin with the Mandarin Chinese sounds themselves (and if you're using Pinyin, you should not be associating them with the English (British or American or other) / French / Aymara / Xhosa pronunciations that you might already know for the letters).

This is very much the difficult route, requiring a lot of previous knowledge and a lot of awareness stemming from a native-like exposure to the language. It also requires you to know the Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao system intimately. The easier way is just to learn characters step by step with their pronunciations (including tone, and glottal stop if applicable), just like the vast majority of Chinese-speaking children whatever their accent, although it's extremely time-consuming.

[Patrick_ChineseForum]

Michaelyus, thanks for your input. Due to my limited Chinese language knowledge, after reading your post twice and then scratching my head for a few second, I'm still not sure whether I understand your post. Honestly I would love to eventually be able to type in Chinese. So knowing standard pinyin is required (based on the replies on this thread).

Talking about patient native speaker with a lot time to spare, I wish I learn some Mandarin from my grandfather many years ago. Now we live thousands of miles away and his hearing has deteriorated fast lately. He probably cannot tell whether I pronounce words correctly... :-( Anyway I plan to find a native speaker and have him/her goes through the entire pinyin chart (as Renzhe suggested). Maybe I'll start from YouTube first. There must be some video clips showing how to pronounce pinyin there.

[jkhsu]

I really like the CCTV learn Chinese site. They've got some good info and videos. Check it out: http://english.cntv.cn/learnchinese/

[renzhe]

Honestly I would love to eventually be able to type in Chinese. So knowing standard pinyin is required

It's not required -- there are other input methods, including wubi, zhuyin-based, cangjie, etc.

It's just that pinyin input is the most widespread and the best supported one on most computers. It's also the most widespread method in dictionaries, learning books, online, etc. So if you don't have really strong reasons to learn something else, I'd recommend going with Hanyu Pinyin.

In terms of learning non-standard and regional accents, it's nice, but it's much easier to concentrate on standard Mandarin first. Most of us find learning standard Mandarin difficult and challenging enough, despite all the available learning material. IMHO, I recommend starting with standard Mandarin, and if you are happy with your level after 10 years, you can move to more challenging things, such as mastering regional pronunciation which has no romanisation, no standard, no learning materials, and which is poorly understood even by many native speakers.

[Taibei]

Remember pin yin is only a way of showing you the pronunciation of the character. it is not really a language on its own.

Chinese characters aren't a language either, they're a script, which is also what Pinyin is.

Although most people either do not know or simply fail to recognize this, Pinyin is a full script for the Mandarin language. It is most definitely not "only a way of showing you the pronunciation of the character."