Syllables in Mandarin

 


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.

Location: Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to screw up pinyin

Image
  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:
Read more

Pinyin is a must for accurate pronunciation.

Image
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.                                                                              
Read more

Are tones in Mandarin important

Image
  At the onset I want to say that I want to learn to speak Mandarin the way it is intended to be spoken. I want to learn to speak it with the correct tones. Recently, I joined a number of groups on Face Book that are for sharing experiences learning Chinese. In most of the groups the beginners as well as intermediate learners complain about tones being the most difficult to learn in Mandarin. Just like many other matters people just say what others have said. Anyway, are tones as important as they are made to be? 
Read more