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  There are about 408 pinyin syllables, and most of them can have any one of the four tones (some of them don't exist in certain tones, and some of them can also be pronounced as a “neutral tone”). Pinyin officially covers all possible sounds in Mandarin. There are no single characters with more than one syllable. There were such characters at one time but were all abolished in Mainland China. Checking Google, I found one such character which is no more in use today. 瓩 qiān​wǎ​ kilowatt (old) / single-character equivalent of 千瓦 Why then would anyone teach Mandarin using Phonics. Refer my post here . This is the first such YouTube post and if left unchecked more so-called teachers will promote this way of teaching kids Pinyin and create problems instead of providing solutions.

  The Westerners have screwed up phonics by teaching kids’ letters with extraneous sounds. Can anyone screw up Pinyin? Here is one girl who has screwed it up and I am afraid more will follow her.This girl is all over social media, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Face Book and I don't know where else. I happened to see her YouTube video on 15.6.24 and made the following comment:

  Here is one YouTube video to learn to speak Mandarin. I would suggest you to learn Pinyin and learn to speak from the 32 lessons on this site.You need not learn the Chinese characters for the time being.  LINK Here is another beginner course for your listening practice. LINK I will introduce more lessons which are all free of charge.  There are free of charge lessons all the way up to HSK 6.  You don't have to learn the Chinese characters if you don't want to.

  I attended the Wellness conference at SICC from the 7 th to the 9 th June and have been away from social media. I learned many valuable facts from the convention including breathing exercises. Meanwhile, I have been following an excellent YouTube channel to learn to speak Mandarin fluently. Each of the lessons has a portion for shadowing. 

  The following is what I mentioned in my second post.  LINK   Many of the Cantonese and Hakka folks will say 'fu' instead of 'hu'.  Also pay attention to the incorrect pronunciations of other words. Shi Huangdi (literally meaning first emperor) tried to unify the Chinese with one language to no avail. The Chinese Government introduced Pinyin to ensure the Chinese speak Mandarin correctly like the Americans who learned it using romanisation. The Malaysian Government introduced Pinyin in the 70s for the same reason.  Today, many Americans in China speak better Mandarin than a majority of Chinese living in Malaysia. Here is a video of a teacher teaching her mom to read correctly. LINK    

Here is a paragraph from a HSK 5 lesson I have started reading. Anyone, who has learned Pinyin will be able to read anything written in Pinyin as well as any other person.  Now, I read Pinyin more fluently than Yale translation but if I read Yale translation for a week I should also be able to read fluently using Yale translation. Below this script I have recorded myself reading the passage. As I mentioned, anyone can read in Pinyin. There were 3 unfamiliar characters which I have now learned with the help of Pinyin. I can read all the Chinese characters but not as fluently as I can using Pinyin.  I urge all Indians and Malays to get their children to self study Mandarin with the help of hundreds of free lessons available on the internet.                                         ...

    Click on the video at the bottom of this page to hear me reading the page below. Most of my Chinese     friends can't even read Pinyin let alone this page using Yale translation.    The above is the first page of the last chapter of Chinese Dialogues. I read this more than 15 years      ago. Anyone who is English educated may learn using Yale Translation once they have learned the    sounds of the syllables. With a little more effort one may learn using Pinyin as well. 

  “Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.” — Charlie Munger There are two main places we can learn from: our own experience or the experience of others. This blog is about my experience learning Mandarin. I hope it will encourage my readers to learn it as well. I have heard a number of teachers from China who say that they cannot teach foreigners to learn to speak in Chinese without them learning Chinese characters. This is false information. Foreigners not only can learn to speak but they will be able to read anything written in Pinyin. Along the way they will learn the Chinese characters.