A Guide for Learners of Chinese
This dictionary is for learners of Chinese as a foreign or second language. It is designed to be a teaching/learning aid to the growing communities of teaching and learning the language. More specifically, this dictionary aims to help those learners who wish to sit for the New Chinese Proficiency Test (New HSK 新汉语水平考试), the Chinese government-sponsored, international standardized test, as it gives detailed treatment of all the 5,000 words in the prescribed Word Lists from Level 1 to Level 6. A further 1,000 very useful words are covered in the dictionary to allow for flexibility of the vocabulary requirement of the HSK.
In the following pages I offer the essentials of the Chinese language and, along the way, advice on how to make the best use of this dictionary.
1 PronunciaTion
1.1 The Pinyin romanization System
The pronunciation of Chinese words is transcribed in this dictionary using the internationally recognized Chinese romanization scheme called pinyin. Every Chinese word in this dictionary is accompanied by its pinyin spelling so users will know how it is pronounced.
Pronouncing Chinese syllables normally involves three elements: vowels, consonants and tones. Modern standard Chinese, known as Putonghua, uses about 419 syllables without tones and 1,332 syllables with tones.
1.2 Vowels
1.2.1 Single Vowels
There are seven basic single vowels:
| a | similar to a in ah |
| e | similar to a in ago |
| ê | similar to e in ebb (this sound never occurs alone and is transcribed as e, as in ei, ie, ue) |
| i | similar to ee in cheese (spelled y when not preceded by a consonant) |
| o | similar to oe in toe |
| u | similar to oo in boot (spelled w when not preceded by a consonant) |
| ü | similar to German ü in über or French u in tu; or you can also get ü by saying i and rounding your lips at the same time (spelled u after j, q, x; spelled yu when not preceded by a consonant) |
1.2.2 Vowel combinations
These single vowels enter into combinations with each other or the consonants of n or ng to form what are technically known as diphthongs. These combinations are pronounced as a single sound, with a little more emphasis on the first part of the sound.
You can learn these combinations in four groups:
| Group 1: | diphthongs starting with a/e/ê |
| ai | similar to y in my |
| ao | similar to ow in how |
| an | |
| ang | |
| en | |
| eng | |
| ei | similar to ay in may |
| Group 2: | diphthongs starting with i |
| ia | |
| ie | similar to ye in yes |
| iao | |
| iou | similar to you (spelled iu when preceded by a consonant) |
| ian | |
| ien | similar to in (spelled in when preceded by a consonant) |
| ieng | similar to En in English (spelled ing when preceded by a consonant) |
| iang | similar to young |
| iong | |
| Group 3: | diphthongs starting with u/o |
| ua | |
| uo | |
| uai | similar to why in British English |
| uei | similar to way (spelled ui when preceded by a consonant) |
| uan | |
| uen | (spelled un when preceded by a consonant) |
| ueng | |
| uang | |
| ong | |
| Group 4: | diphthongs starting with ü |
| üe | used only after j, q, x; spelled ue |
| üen | used only after j, q, x; spelled un |
| üan | used only after j, q, x; spelled uan |
1.3 consonants
Consonants may be grouped in the following ways.
Group 1: These consonants are almost the same in Chinese and English.
| CHINESE | ENGLISH |
| m | m |
| n | n |
| f | f |
| l | l |
| s | s |
| r | r |
| b | pronounced as hard p (as in speak) |
| p | p (as in peak) |
| g | pronounced as hard k (as in ski) |
| k | k (as in key) |
| d | pronounced as hard t (as in star) |
| t | t (as in tar) |
Group 2: Some modification is needed to get these Chinese sounds from English.
| CHINESE | eNGLISH |
| j | as j in jeep (but unvoiced, not round-lipped) |
| q | as ch in cheese (but not round-lipped) |
| x | as sh in sheep (but not round-lipped) |
| c | as ts as in cats (make it long) |
| z | as ds as in beds (but unvoiced, and make it long) |
Group 3: No English counterparts
Chinese zh, ch, and sh have no English counterparts. You can learn to say zh, ch and sh starting from z, c and s. For example, say s (which is almost the same as the English s in sesame) and then roll up your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth. You get sh.
1.4 Tones
Chinese is a tonal language, i.e. a sound pronounced in different tones is understood as different words. So the tone is an indispensable component of the pronunciation of a word.
1.4.1 Basic Tones
There are four basic tones. The following five-level pitch graph shows the values of the four tones:
The First Tone is a high, level tone and is represented as ¯, e.g. 妈 mā (meaning mother, mom).
The Second Tone is a high, rising tone and is represented by the tone mark
The Third Tone is a falling and rising tone. As you can see from the pitch graph it falls from below the middle of the voice range to nearly the bottom and then rises to a point near the top. It is represented by the tone mark
The Fourth Tone is a falling tone. It falls from high to low and is represented by the tone mark
In Chinese speech, as in English speech,