Find your first sounds
IntroducedEnglish
One word, three kinds of information
- Listen to hello你好 — hello. The characters show the written words; nǐ hǎo shows pronunciation; the English gives the meaning.
- Mandarin is the spoken variety taught here. Simplified characters are the main writing system used in these lessons.
English
Pinyin is a sound guide
- Pinyin uses letters, but they do not always sound like English letters. Read mā, nǐ, hǎo by listening and repeating, not by guessing from English.
- A syllable has a main vowel sound and may begin or end with a consonant. The mark over the vowel indicates its tone.
Prática
What does pinyin primarily show?
Pinyin represents pronunciation, including tones.
Prática
Match the representation.
All three refer to the greeting, but do different jobs.
English
Listen, pause, repeat
- Play one phrase, pause, then repeat. Start slowly and aim for a clear whole phrase.
- Listen again and compare. It is normal to need several tries; do not aim for perfect speech before using a greeting.
Example
hello你好 → nǐ hǎo → hello. These are written form, sound guide, and meaning for the same phrase.
Prática
Which phrase did you hear?
你好 is hello.
English
Meet words as units
- student学生 xuésheng — student has two characters and two syllables. teacher老师 lǎoshī — teacher also has two.
- A character and a word are not always the same thing. Learn useful whole words before studying their parts.
Watch out
Pinyin is not an English translation. Chinese characters are not pictures you can reliably guess; a component can be a clue, but the word still needs to be learned.
Prática
How many syllables are in xuésheng? Enter a number.
xué and sheng are the two syllables.
Prática
Every Chinese word has exactly one character.
学生 and 老师 are two-character words.
English
A first small success
- Close the page and say hello. Open it again if you need a reminder.
- Keep characters, pinyin, and meaning available while you learn. Next, practise the four tones.
Key idea
Characters show writing, pinyin guides sound, and translation gives meaning. Listen before copying the sound.