2Kids 学拼音

2Kids 学拼音- Written by 2kids.cn, the same company who wrote 2kids学汉字, this app aims to help your child learn and practice the sounds that make up Chinese (also known as Hanyu Pinyin).  This app is written for children who already are familiar with the language and need to learn the writing system.  However, this app is a good way for non-native speakers to practice Hanyu Pinyin after an introduction from another source.

This app is engaging for kids ages 3-7.  It uses the same "Dora" type set-up that its counterpart uses.  Children complete mini-missions by using what they've learned about Hanyu Pinyin.

The first set of lessons are free as an introduction to the app.  There are two further in-app purchases that each cost about $3.  I would recommend these purchases only if the child has someone else to help them learn the sounds.  This app is inadequate by itself to teach Hanyu Pinyin.

Pinyin Pronunciation Guide- Learn Chinese ABC

Check out this website by Learn Chinese ABC.  It provides a brief introduction to the history of pinyin development and also provides in-depth and accurate information about how to pronounce these sounds.  The description of each sound is complimented with an animated video of the articulators (teeth, lips, palates, and tongue).  This allows you to see exactly how to position your tongue for each sound.  In addition, there is also written step-by-step instructions to follow and video of a native-speaker as they say the individual sounds.

To access the free site, click on the link above and then use the topics along the left-hand side.  This site is a little visually overwhelming, but if you take the time to accustom yourself to it you will find it is a wealth of information.

Tips for Better Pronunciation and Reading

Need some tips for better pronunciation.  Here is some of what I've learned about tongue placement in Chinese sounds.

• b, p, m, and f- are all produced at the front of the mouth
• b, p, and m- are similiar to English and made with the upper and lower lip coming together.
• f- is a fricative and is made with the upper front teeth gently touching the lower lip.
• d, t, n, and l- are all produced by placing the tip of the tongue behind the upper front teeth.
• d and t- are plosives, meaning that the air is initially prevented from coming out of the mouth because the tongue is firmly against the top of the mouth.  Then the tongue tip relaxes and the sound is released.  This is very similar to the sounds "d" and "t" in English.
• n- much like the English "n," the sound comes out the nose.
• l- much like the English "l," the tongue tip is against the top of the mouth and the sound comes out around the sides of the tongue tip.
• g, k, and h- are all produced in the back of the mouth.
• g and t- are plosives, meaning that the air is initially prevented from coming out of the mouth because the back of the tongue is firmly against the top of the mouth.  Then the tongue relaxes and the sound is released.  This is very similar to the sounds "g" and "k" in English.
• h- much like the English "h."
•  j, q, and x- are all produced by touching the tip of the tongue to the back of the lower, front teeth.
• j and q- are affricatives meaning that the sound produced is caused by stopping the airflow at the place of articulation- in this case between the tongue and the roof of the mouth- and then continuing to let the air flow out for an extended time through a narrow opening between the articulators.
• x- is a fricative, which allows the air to slid gently between the tongue and the palate.
• zh, ch, sh, r- are all produced by rolling the tongue back in the mouth.  In English an r-sound can be produced in two ways (one of which is by rolling the tongue); however, in Chinese the r-sound must be made by a retro-flexed (rolled) tongue.
• z, c, and s- are all produced by placing the tip of the tongue behind the upper front teeth.  They are all affricatives meaning that the sound produced is caused by stopping the airflow at the place of articulation- in this case between the tip of th tongue and the mouth just behind the upper front teeth- and then continuing to let the air flow out for an extended time through a narrow opening between the articulators.

 *Please, remember I'm not a native speaker; however, I do hold a MA in Speech Pathology.  The tips above primarily concentrate on tongue position.  There are other differences in pronunciation, but they are much more difficult to master.  Concentrating on the tips above in combination with the Learning Mandarin for Beginners app will help you achieve intelligibility, but you'll still have an accent.




A few notes about reading and writing:

• y- 
• When a word begins with "i," change the "i" to a "y."
• ia--> ya
• ie --> ye
• iao --> yao
• iou --> you
• ian --> yan
• iang --> yang
• iong --> yong
• BUT . . .
• in --> yin
• ing --> ying
• w- 
• When a word begins with "u," add "w" before the "u." 
• u --> wu
• When a word starts with "u" and is followed by a additional letters, change the "u" to a "w."
• ua --> wa
• uo --> wo
• uai --> wai
• uei --> wei
• uan --> wan
• uen --> wen
• uang --> wang
• ueng --> weng
•   ü-
• To pronounce this, start by saying the English sound "eeeee" (like in "eel").  While keeping your tongue in the same place, move your lips to form the English sound "oooo" (like in "moon").
•  Always place a "y" in front of words starting with the "ü" sound and remove the umlaut (the two dots).
• ü --> yu
• üe --> yue
• üan --> yuan
• ün --> yun   

12 Happy-Chinese Pinyin Lessons

This website has a list of the "12 Happy-Chinese Pinyin Lessons."  The audio is O.K.  The downside of these lessons is that the examples they give you to help you to remember each pinyin sound is based on Chinese.  For example, to teach you the sound for "ü," they tell you it's the same sound as the word for "fish" in Chinese.  So this lesson set may be more helpful to children who already speak Mandarin at home and are learning the writing system.  However, for those of you who are learning Chinese as a foreign language, go ahead and take a look at this site.  There is lots of repetition of the sounds and it is always spoken in correspondence with the pinyin so you can still practice connecting the pinyin with the correct sound.

Pinyin Alphabet

Here is a video with great audio that shows the pinyin as it sings the pinyin alphabet.  I did see one misspelling; around 1 minutes and 30 seconds into the video it tells you the pronunciation for "üu."  However, the spelling should instead be "ün."  If someone disagrees with this assessment, please let me know in the comments.

Learning Pinyin

My favorite site for practicing pinyin pronunciation and tones was www.studypond.com; however, it seems that site has been discontinued.

I've been looking for a new site that does an equivalent job of explaining and providing examples.  The next best site that I have found so far is http://www.learnchineseabc.com/chinese-pinyin-system.htm.  It breaks down the processes of learning pinyin into manageable steps.  It also provides examples of each of the sounds individually, within a word, and with each of the possible tones.  What is unique about this site is that it provides a video of what the articulators (teeth, tongue, palates, and lips) are doing during pronunciation.  The only downside is that the website was written by a non-native English speaker and you must sometimes figure out the intention of the sentences as the meaning is not always clear; however, examples are abundantly provided.

YellowBridge Chinese/English Online Dictionary

YellowBridge- is a well organized, online dictionary that offers several nice features.  First off, the basic services are free.  This includes audio files that allow you to listen to the word's pronunciation, information on the character’s radical/etymology, and the stroke order for writing the character.  Each entry also has a short list of phrases/compound words that start or end with the target character, which is very nice if you can only remember part of a word or phrase.

Entries can be viewed in either their simplified or traditional forms.  There are several methods to looking up an entry:

• English input,
• Pinyin input,
• Type Chinese characters (simplified or traditional), and
• Draw Chinese characters using a Java program.  This function is not accessible via the web on your iPad.  However, you can get around this by activating the iPad keyboard named "Chinese-Traditional:  Handwriting" or "Chinese-Simplified:  Handwriting."  Check out this blog to find out how to do this in just a few easy steps.

There are also two alternative method for looking up entries, which are based on the root radical. 

• Select a radical (simplified or traditional) and also the number of additional strokes.  The dictionary will provide you with a list of characters (based on the 4,000 most common characters) that fit your criteria.
• The pool of entries that the dictionary pulls from (X number of common characters) can be increased by purchasing membership. 
• If you remember part of a character such as the character's structure and one of the component pieces, the dictionary will provide you with a list of characters (based on the 500 most common characters) that fit your criteria. 
• The pool of entries that the dictionary pulls from (X number of common characters) can be increased by purchasing membership.  

Input using 注音符號(ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) is not available, but YellowBridge offers you a great conversion chart.