Pronunciation

The official romanisation of Chinese used in mainland China (and Singapore) is a system called "pinyin" ( hànyǔ pīnyīn - "Chinese sound-spelling"), designed to represent the national language, commonly referred to as pǔtōnghuà (the "common speech") or Mandarin. Students from mainland China will spell their names in pinyin. Students from Taiwan, however, will use any one of several different romanisations of Mandarin; students from Hong Kong or from Malaysia or other regions of the diaspora will typically use a romanisation of one of the South China dialects - Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Hokkien. Thus the spelling of a Chinese name can be an indication of where the bearer of that name comes from.

This page provides some broad guidelines for the pronunciation of Pinyin spellings. For a more technical letter-by-letter guide, see the Wikipedia page Pinyin .

Chinese is a syllable-based language: each Chinese character is pronounced as a single syllable, and Chinese words typically consist of one or two syllables (characters).

In describing Chinese pronunciation, it is traditional to analyse the syllables into two parts, the "initial" (the initial consonant, if there is one) and the "final" - the rest of the syllable. (A third component is the "tone" of the syllable - whether the voice rises, falls or stays steady in pronouncing the syllable; but we don't go into that here; again, refer to the Wikipedia page, at Tones )

Syllable Initials (consonants):

cai, cao, cang, cong zai, zao, zang, zong	tsai, tsao, tsahng, tsoong dzai, dzao, dzahng, dzoong	(for the vowels, see below)
cha, chao, chang, chen, cheng, chong	close to English "ch" in "Charles"	.....
zha, zhao, zhang, zhen, zheng, zhong	close to English "ge" in "George"	not the sound in the middle of "pleasure" and "measure"
xi, xin, xing	a sound close to English "sh" in "she", or sometimes "s" in "see"	.....
qi, qin, qing	close to English "ch" in "cheese"	.....
ji, jin, jing	close to English "j" in "jihad"	.....
xu, xun qu, qun ju, jun	the same consonants followed by " (see below)	.....
Other consonants pretty much as in English

Syllable Finals (what comes after the initial consonants):

chen	with the neutral sound of "kitchen"	not the sound of "Chelsea"; similarly
e ce, che, de, ge, he, ze, zhe, te ben, cen, gen, hen, men, pen, wen ceng, cheng, deng, geng, heng, meng, peng, zeng, zheng	all with the same neutral vowel sound, not the sound of "get"	the word he (river) sounds like Australian "her", not "he". Exceptions to this:
ye, jie, qie, xie yue, jue, que, xue	have the sound of "get"	like "yeah", but shorter.
bi, bin, bing di, ding li, lin, ling mi, min, ming; etc.	the vowel i is pronounced "i" as in "bin" or "ee"	except in the following syllables:
si, ci, zi, ri	pronounced with a narrower version of the neutral sound at the end of "letter" in standard British or Australian English	not to rhyme with "see"; similarly,
shi, chi, zhi	pronounced with the same neutral sound with an 'r' flavour added	the last sound of "letter" in standard American English.
nu/n lu/l	the "u" vowel is close to that of English "put", lips rounded, tongue well back in the mouth; for " the lips are rounded, but the tongue is forward in the mouth, in the position of "ee"	(cf. French doux/du, pour/pur)
shu/xu chu/qu zhu/ju	The same contrast is heard in these pairs	.....
bo, cuo, duo, fo, guo, huo, luo, mo, nuo, po, suo, tuo, wo, zuo, zhuo	all with the sound of Australian "law"	.....
chou, dou, hou, lou, mou, tou, you, zou, zhou	all rhyme with English "hoe"	.....
cong, chong, song, dong, kong, long, tong, zong	rhyme with "boong"	not with "bong"
cang, fang, gang, hang, liang, mang, sang, tang, wang, zhang	with the vowel of "ah", close to "sung"	not like "sang"
can, dan, fan, gan, han, man, nan, pan, ran, zhan	with the vowel of "ah", close to "fun"	not like "fan". But note the following:
dian, jian, lian, mian, pian, qian, tian	dyen, jyen, lyen, myen, pyen, chyen, tyen	with the vowel of English "ten" ( not "tan" or "tarn"). Also:
xuan, juan, quan, yuan	shen, jen, chen, yen	.....
bai, cai, chai, dai, gai, lai, mai, nai, pai, sai, tai, wai, zai, zhai	rhyme with 'refined' English "eye"	.....
bei, gei, lei, mei, pei, shei	rhyme with 'refined' English "day"	.....
chui, dui, kui, rui, sui, zui	chuei, duei, kuei, ruei, suei, dzuei	.....
liu, niu, jiu	lyou, nyou, jyou	.....