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Invariably, each Chinese character’s pronunciation is either a consonant followed by one or two vowels?? always in this order) or one or two vowels only.?? In an analogy, Chinese characters all sound a bit like “La”, “Di”, “Da”.

And generally the pronunciation of each Chinese character lasts about the same length in a sentence.?? So roughly, a Chinese sentence sounds like “he saw me”, “I know you”, or “who can sing?”, if read flatly.

The phonics system for Chinese characters is called Pinyin.
2. Four Tones

Each Chinese character has one vowel, and each vowel, in turn, has a tone with it.?? Many characters should have different tones for different meanings, but most have unique tones in all situations.

There are 5 possible tones: 4 major tones and a “light” tone.?? Conventionally, the major tones are labeled as followings:

Tone 1: flat

Tone 2: up

Tone 3: curve

Tone 4: down

The 5th tone is called “light” tone, which has no number as label.?? Characters with light tone should be pronounced light and fast, the only exceptions to the previous rule that all characters in a sentence lasts about the same long. During our introduction of the Chinese characters, we will always put the tones?? after the Pinyin, like (ma 4) or (da 2).

It is important to remember that Chinese character???s tone has nothing to do with its meaning.