Basic Chinese Phonetics

The table below illustrates the Chinese phonetic alphabet for Mandarin. Please note that the transcriptions with Roman characters are NOT pronounced according to European rules of pronunciation. Also note that this alphabet only can be used to specify the pronunciation of Chinese characters according to Mandarin – this means that you can NOT spell European words with these characters!

For tools in teaching and learning Chinese Phonetics, please see: Chinese Phonetic - Zhuyin

For more phonetic information, please see: Mandarin Chinese Phonetic Symbols

Four Tones in Mandarin Chinese, please see Four Tones in Chinese Mandarin

Let's learn to speak some Chinese: Demonstration of How To Speak Chinese

Let's learn to write some Chinese words, please see Chinese children learn writing Chinese

Chinese children Cultural Learning