Lesson 1

Initials and Finals

The lecture introduces the basic concepts of pinyin.  For the most part, a character’s pinyin starts with an initial and ends with a final.  They are similar to consonants and vowels.  In the Tools section, we provide a pinyin tool to practice all the combinations of initials and finals.  However, some combinations have no Chinese characters associated with them.  These are grayed out and do not have sounds.

Zero Initials

When an initial is not used in pinyin, it is called a zero initial.  Sometimes, a final can be used by itself.  If the final begins with i-, u-, ü-, a semivowel is used to prefix a final.  There are two semivowels: y- and w-.   The following table explains how they are used.

Semi-vowel y-

Semi-vowel w-

Finals Starts with i-

Finals Starts with ü-

Finals Starts with u-

1.   Add y in front of the final.

-i	yi
-in	yin
-ing	ying

2.  Replace i- with y-.

-ia	ya
-ie	ye
-iao	yai
-an	yan
-iang	yang
-iong	yong

3.  Irregular change.

-iu

you

1.  Add y in front of the final.

- ü	yu
-üe	yue
-üan	yuan
-ün	yun

1. Add w in front of the final.

-u

wu

2. Replace u- with w-.

-ua	wa
-uo	wo
-uai	wai
-uan	wan
-uang	wang

3.  Irregular change.

-ui	wei
-un	wen
-uang	wang
-ong*	weng

*  -ong contains u- sound. 

Tones

There are five tones in Mandarin. Tones 1-4 are marked with –, /, v. \.  The fifth tone, also called the neutral tone, has no mark. It sounds like the first tone but lighter and shorter.  The neutral tone is seldom used, and its pronunciation is not included in the pinyin tool on the website because it does not apply to all the pinyin sounds.  It is customary to practice pinyins with the four tones to become familiar with the tonal differences.

Computer Pinyin 

There are a few things you should know when reading or writing pinyin with a computer.

1.  Since most computer keyboards do not have the character ü, it is sometimes replaced with the letter v.  For example, n ü may be written as nv.

2. There are two ways to denote tones.  In this website, we use the more commonly seen diacritics (tone marks on top of letters) used in the Mandarin textbooks.  However, since it is more difficult to input diacritics with the standard keyboard, you may also see pinyins with tone numbers.  For example, hǎo may be written as hao3.  Some input systems may also allow you to input tones this way.

3. In many computer input systems, such as Microsoft Word, it is not necessary to input the tones.  A list of Chinese characters with various tones will appear after you input the initials and finals and allow you to select the correct character.