What is pinyin?

Pinyin is the most widely-used system of writing Mandarin Chinese that uses the Latin alphabet. It is a great tool to help you learn the accurate pronunciation of Mandarin words.

First, you need to learn how to read pinyin, as Mandarin contains some sounds which do not exist in English.

Have a look at our guide, listen to the voices in Real Chinese and our tone and character games to hear how native speakers pronounce the sounds.

Don’t worry if you don’t get it right first time, learning pinyin needs a fair bit of practice.


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