拼音
Pīnyīn
Pīnyīn (拼音) literally means, "to spell the sounds". It is a system that does exactly what it means, it uses the Roman alphabet (English letters) to spell out the sounds of Chinese. The Pīnyīn system is very useful in learning how to say Chinese words correctly, and it is also the input method for being able to type on a computer, write on an iPad and text on a cell phone. If you learn Pīnyīn you will be able to communicate with the world in Chinese through technology. Pīnyīn is broken up into Initials (letters/sounds that can start a syllable) and Finals (letters/sounds that can end a syllable). Finals come in 2 types, Simple (one letter/sound) and Compound (multiple letters/sounds). It is important to know that Pīnyīn is extremely useful, BUT it cannot be used in place of Chinese characters. All the meaning in Chinese is locked within the characters, and because there are so many homonyms in the Chinese language, reading or writing in only Pīnyīn becomes confusing and doesn't contain any meaning. The best thing to do is learn Pīnyīn to help you speak Chinese words correctly, but only use it to help you as you learn to read and write real Chinese characters.