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Mandarin pinyin and tones

Pinyin is the official way to write Mandarin sounds in Latin letters. Eight units cover the four tones and the neutral tone, the 21 initials, the finals, the spelling rules, the tone changes you hear in every sentence, a first look at simplified characters, numbers and first greetings. Each unit has recordings to copy and dictation.

Progress

About this course

Pinyin is the official way to write Mandarin sounds in Latin letters, and it was not the first. Before pinyin, Chinese schools already taught sounds with zhuyin fuhao, often called bopomofo after its first four letters, which was made official in the 1910s. When the pinyin scheme was published in 1958, its table of initials printed the old zhuyin letter beside each Latin one. The course is about hearing and saying the sounds correctly, with recordings to copy and dictation in every unit.

The eight units are the four tones and the neutral tone, the 21 initials, the finals, pinyin spelling rules, tone changes, a first look at simplified characters, numbers from 0 to 100,000, and first greetings. The third tone needs the most attention. Said alone it dips and comes back up, but in running speech speakers often say only the low part. Spelling rules place the tone mark on the main vowel: an a or an e takes it, in ou the o takes it, and otherwise the last vowel does, as in hǎo, gǒu and liù. Tone sandhi has three rules for a beginner: two third tones, 一 yī and 不 bù.

Characters and numbers close the course. Simplification followed a few patterns, such as the speech component on the left side becoming a shorter form everywhere it appears. Chinese numbers are some of the most regular in any language and good tone practice, because the first ten use all four tones. For dictation, switch on a Chinese (Simplified) Pinyin keyboard and type nihao without tone marks. In the last unit, putting ma at the end of a statement turns it into a yes or no question with no change in word order.

Before you start

No Chinese is needed to start. Pinyin uses Latin letters, so knowing the alphabet is enough, and every tone is shown with its mark and an example word. Much of the practice means saying syllables such as ma in four pitches, so choose a place where you can listen and speak aloud.

When you finish

You will be able to read tone marks and say the four tones and the neutral tone, tell b from p by the puff of air, and spell finals such as -n and -ng correctly. You can apply the rule that turns nǐ hǎo into ní hǎo, recognise a few simplified characters, count from 0 to 100,000 and use first greetings such as 你好 and the polite 您.

  1. 1The four tones and the neutral toneSay ma with a level, rising, dipping or falling pitch and you get four different words: mother, hemp, horse and scold.
  2. 2Initials: the consonants at the startPinyin has 21 initial consonants, and what separates b from p is a puff of air, not the voice.
  3. 3Finals: vowels and the n and ng endingsA Mandarin syllable can end only in a vowel, n or ng, so 饭 fàn (meal) and 放 fàng (to put) are told apart by the last sound alone.
  4. 4Pinyin spelling rulesThe same sound can be written i, yi or y in pinyin, and the rules for choosing fit on a single page of the 1958 scheme.
  5. 5Tone changes: two third tones, 一 and 不你好 is written nǐ hǎo but said ní hǎo, because the first of two third tones in a row rises instead of dipping.
  6. 6A first look at simplified charactersChina’s 2013 Table of General Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters, and its first level of 3,500 is the set meant for school and everyday reading.
  7. 7Numbers from 0 to 100,000With eleven words, 零 and 一 to 十, you can say every whole number from 0 to 99.
  8. 8First greetings你好 nǐ hǎo, literally you good, is the first phrase in almost every textbook, and it already uses the third-tone change from unit 5.

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Sources for this course (13)
  • Ministry of Education of the PRC, 汉语拼音方案 (Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet)
  • approved 1958-02-11 by the 5th session of the 1st National People’s Congress (moe.gov.cn/jyb_sjzl/ziliao/A19/195802/t19580201_186000.html; full text zh.wikisource.org/wiki/汉语拼音方案): alphabet, 21 initials, table of finals and notes 1 to 6, tone marks, neutral tone unmarked, apostrophe pi’ao
  • MOE, 汉语拼音方案的通用键盘表示规范 (v for ü)
  • MOE and State Council, 通用规范汉字表 2013: 8,105 characters, level 1 = 3,500 (moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/201308/t20130828_156388.html)
  • 简化字总表 1986 edition, built on the 1956 汉字简化方案 (zh.wikisource.org)
  • Huiqiang Zheng, Mastering Mandarin Sounds, University of Iowa Pressbooks 2025, ch. 21 Tone Sandhi (pressbooks.uiowa.edu/zheng)
  • University of Kansas, Ting Yi Ting, 19 Pinyin Spelling Conventions (opentext.ku.edu/tingyiting/chapter/lesson19)
  • Western Kentucky University, Chinese 101, Tones (about 400 syllables) (people.wku.edu/shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm)
  • AllSet Learning Chinese Pronunciation Wiki, Tone changes for bu and yi (resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation)
  • pinyin.info, Where do the tone marks go?
  • Chao Yuen Ren’s five-level tone letters 55, 35, 214, 51 as cited in Journal of Language Teaching and Research (jltr.academypublication.com, article 3247)
  • ISO 7098:1982 (iso.org/standard/13682.html)
  • Wikipedia, Zhou Youguang.

Checked: 2026-10-17