Start with the basic Chinese words and phrases below. They are spelled out in pinyin first with the phonetic pronunciation in parentheses. The markings above the pinyin denote the tone — and ...

An introduction to China and Mandarin, the official Chinese language. It shows how Mandarin is taught in schools with the correct tones and using pinyin, a romanised form of spelling. There's a ...

Mandarin characters don't give us the sound of a word, so the Chinese invented ... tones plus a neutral tone, we can create every sound in the Mandarin language. Many pinyin sounds are similar ...

Journalist, blogger, podcaster and author Qin Xie previously explained for Metro : ‘Happy Chinese New Year is xin nian (new ...