tone means "horse." It is pronounced with a lowering of the voice.
Fourth tone ( ̀ ): The word mà with fourth tone means "to scold" (for instance, if one were to reprimand someone, one would mà! the said individual). The fourth tone is spoken sharply, like the word "Damn!"
There is one more tone, må, referred to by the Chinese as "light sound," which indicates that the syllable should be spoken like the fourth tone pronunciation of the word "Damn!" except shorter (as if the speaker had tried to say "Damn" but only had time to pronounce the "da").
I advise the reader not to worry about the tones but to focus on the phonetic transcriptions which have been written so that English speakers can pronounce them easily. Just as English is spoken with different accents, so is Chinese; learners of Chinese must therefore develop an ear for the language.
CONSONANTS
The following offers a guide to the pronunciation of the standard Hanyu Pinyin system of romanization, which is used almost all over the world.
Most consonants are pronounced as in English.
| Chinese | English |
| c | its |
| q | cheat (said with a puff of air) |
| r | urn |
| X | sea |
| z | bits |
| ch | church (said with one's tongue rolled back and with a puff of air) |
| sh | shit (said with one's tougue rolled back) |
| zh | jerk (said with one's tongue rolled back) |
VOWELS
| Chinese | English |
| a | father |
| e | hen |
| i | pin (A simple "i" is pronounced as "e" in he) |
| o | go |
| u | July |
| ü | feud (said with rounded lips) |
| ao | how |
| ei | hay |
| ou | no (said with a slight pull) |
| ui | wait |
The more challenging combinations are as follows:
| ci | its |
| qi | chip |
| si | swing |
| zi | bits |
The "i" in ci , si and zi is silent
In the subsequent sections of the book, the Hanyu Pinyin system of romanization is presented on the right with phonetic transcriptions given below it. Phonetic transcriptions are included to cue you in on the English equivalent of a speech sound in the Hanyu Pinyin system.
TENSES
Tenses are expressed simply in Chinese. If you want to express that you already did something, you can add the word lůh at the end of the sentence. If you wish to express that you will do something, you can use the words jiāng huày. For example.,"I will go" is Wǒ jiāng huày chìu. A sentence can also be made past or future by the use of time words such as míng tiēn (tomorrow) or dzúo tiēn (yesterday). Time is usually mentioned at the beginning of a sentence. For example, "I will go tomorrow" is Wǒ míng tiēn chìu; "I went yesterday" is Wǒ dzúo tiēn chìu lůh .
1 Basic Phrases
Who?
谁？
What?
什么？
Where?
哪里？
When?
什么时候？
Why?
为什么？
How?
怎么样？
Whose?
谁的？
This
这个
That
那个
Here
这里。
There
那里
If
如果
But
但是
However
可是
Nevertheless
不过
Because
因为
Thus
那么
So, therefore
所以
Yes
是的
