Preparing for the GCC: Chinese Lessons, Part 1

How to Pronounce Chinese

This short lesson is aimed at teaching beginners of Chinese how to read and pronounce Chinese names and words. It will teach you how to use transcription to transform the Chinese characters into Latin letters, and then how to read different letter combinations. The lesson is directed at people who are able to speak English and are looking for a quick and easy way to learn how to pronounce Chinese. 

It is neither an introduction to the Chinese language, nor to Chinese characters, nor trying to teach the perfect pronunciation. The goal is to enable people to read out any Chinese word, in order to serve as a starting point for further learning of the language or as a means to make yourself understood by a native speaker of Chinese.

The lesson is divided into five parts, with the first being a general introduction to the Chinese language, the following two focusing on basics of pronunciation, and the fifth serving as a training session with real examples. The fourth part will give a quick introduction into the four different Chinese tones, aimed at the most enthusiastic and can be skipped by anyone else However, after the first two lessons and a little training, readers should be able to pronounce any Chinese name or word in a way that a Chinese person would understand.

Click here to download the first lesson!