Chinese Pinyin

Chinese pinyin, the basic knowledge in mandarin is the phonetic notation of written Chinese known as “汉字(hàn zì)”. Literally, pinyin (拼音) means to “spell sound”, or combining the alphabets together. Like the phonetic alphabets in English, pinyin is used to make mandarin learning easier.

Chinese pinyin is very important for learning Chinese well and we should learn pinyin before we read and write. A misuse of Chinese pinyin will make your expression hard to be understood, and in worst case you will make a fool of yourself. In the following video, you will see how Sheldon made a fool of himself with his poor "pinyin job" in a Chinese restaurant.