Seventh Eve - Chinese Valentine's Day

Seventh Eve - Chinese Valentine's Day 中国的情人节 -- 七夕 The 7th evening of the 7th moon of the Lunar Calendar, which falls on the 31st of July in 2006, is a traditional Chinese festival called Qixi “Seventh Eve”. Why is the Seventh Eve considered Valentine’s Day for the Chinese? The answer leads us to a touching fairy tale of Niu Lang, the Cowherd and Zhi Nü, the Weaver Girl. In the fairy tale the Cowherd was a young farmer who had once rescued a holy cow, and the Weaver Girl was one of the granddaughters of Wɑng Mu Niɑngniɑng, Queen Mother of Heaven. One day, all the weaver girls in heaven descended on earth for a visit. While they were bathing in a river, the holy cow persuaded the Cowherd to take away the clothes of the seventh weaver girl. In the process of searching for her clothes, the Weaver Girl fell in love with the Cowherd and they became husband and wife. The Cowherd worked in the fields while the Weaver Girl weaved at home, and they led a happy life. When Queen Mother of Heaven learnt this, she was enraged and forced the Weaver Girl to go back to heaven. The Cowherd ran after them. Just as he was about to catch up with them, Queen Mother of Heaven, removed her silver hairpin and draw a line with it behind her. Immediately, a huge river appeared between the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. This river, which is created with a silver hairpin, is then called Yin He “the Silver River”, known in the West as the Milky Way. As a result the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were ruthlessly separated. Eventually, their love moved the magpies. On the seventh eve of the seventh moon each year, all the magpies would flock together to form a bridge over the Silver River so that the couple were able to meet each other on the bridge. On the basis of this fairy tale, people name two very bright stars opposite each other across the Milky Way the Cowherd (the Altair) and the Weaver Girl (the Vega).

The two less bright stars flanking the Vega are regarded as the children of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. To sit in the courtyard on Seventh Eve to watch the Cowherd and Weaver Girl stars has become a unique custom in the Chinese popular culture. On a clear late summer night, the two stars can be seen facing each other across the broad silvery Milky Way. On this night, girls will face the bright moon and pray to heaven for a lover that can satisfy her heart’ s desire. Another Chinese custom on Seventh Eve is to release lotus lanterns on water. As darkness falls, surfaces of rivers, lakes, and ponds are dotted with the lanterns that young men and women have released. The lanterns move slowly on the water, carrying with them the longings of young men and women for a perfect marriage. Under these circumstances, the sparkling stars in the sky, the lotus lanterns in the water, and the lovers in the moonlight or in the light of the lanterns together form the most beautiful and romantic scene on Earth! The Weaver Girl was a beautiful, clever and handy fairy who was capable of weaving brocade as flowery and colourful as the sunset glow. Girls on earth who long to be as handy as the Weaver Girl will compete to thread a needle with a silk thread in the moonlight on Seventh Eve. Whoever gets the silk thread through the eye of the needle first will be acknowledged as the most handy girl. Some girls will look up at the Weaver Girl star and pray to Weaver Girl to give them wisdom and dexterity. For this reason, Seventh Eve festival is also known as “the Festival of Praying for Dexterity” and “Girls Festival”. Today, Seventh Eve remains a romantic festival. Customs on this day vary across China and some of the traditional activities have gone out of fashion. Yet, the love story of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl is still being passed on from generation to generation. 注释 Notes *簪子zānzi: hairpin *牵牛星qiānniúxīng: “leading the cow star”, the Altair (the brightest star in the constellation Aquila facing the Vega across the Milky Way) *织女星zhīnǚxīng: “weaver girl star”, the Vega (the brightest star in the constellation Lyra facing the Altair across the Milky Way)
There Are Two Seventh Eves This Year There are two Seventh Eves in the Chinese lunar calendar this year and they fall on July 31st and August 30th respectively. This means there are two Lovers’ Days this year. Why is it so? The reason is that the seventh month this year is a leap month (run yue). Leap months are added to the Chinese lunar calendar to solve the discrepancy between solar and lunar years. The length of a solar year is about 365 days, whereas that of a lunar year is approximately 354 days, about 11 days shorter than a solar year. In 17 year’s time, this discrepancy will lead to a mismatch between the calendar and the seasons. To solve this problem, the ancient Chinese astronomers came up with the idea of a leap month on the basis of astronomical observations. They added seven leap months to a period of 19 years, which is known as the “rule of 19 years with 7 leap months”, thus rendering the average length of lunar years approximately equal to the length of a solar year. In this way it was ensured that the first three months on the lunar calendar were spring; the fourth, fifth and sixth months were summer; the seventh, eighth and ninth months were autumn; and the last three months were winter. The month that is added to another month is called the leap month (runyue). For example, a leap month is added to the seventh month on the lunar calendar this year, so it is called the leap seventh month (runqiyue). That is why there are two Seventh Eves this year. As a result, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl now have a rare opportunity to get together a second time this year!
...

Read More..

Chinese grammar

Chinese grammar—here referring to that of Standard Mandarin—shares a similar system of grammar with the many language varieties or dialects of the Chinese language, different from those employed by other language families, and comparable to the similar features found within, for instance, the Slavic languages or Semitic languages. Beyond genetic similarities within the Sino-Tibetan language family to which Chinese belongs, there are also strong similarities within the East Asian sprachbund, a group of mutually-influenced but not directly related languages, including Japanese and Korean.

One key feature of Chinese grammar is that all words have only one grammatical form, as the language without the conjugation, declension, or any other inflection (there are minor exceptions). Functions such as number in nouns or tense in verbs are expressed through word order or particles. In other words, where nouns in other languages might be distinguished by singular and plural ("woman" and "women") or verbs by number or person ("I go", "he goes"), Chinese lexemes are typically invariant.
Without the inflections, Chinese grammar may appear quite simple compared to that of many highly-inflected Indo-European languages (e.g. Russian, Latin, etc.), or even the low-scale verb conjugations, for instance, of English (e.g. "swim, swam, swum"). However, Chinese displays a very high level of complexity in its syntax. Chinese is an analytic language (a concept related, though not exactly identical, to that of isolating language). An analytic language is any language where syntax and meaning are shaped more by use of particles and word order rather than by inflection. The distinction between particles can be difficult for learners to grasp.

Topic-prominence
Chinese is considered to be a topic-prominent language, where the topic of the sentence (defined as "old" information whereupon the sentence is based) takes precedence in the sentence. For example, the following sentences do not seem to follow normal subject-first word order, but adhere perfectly to the topic-comment
structure (Traditional Characters in parentheses):
院(yuàn)子(zi)里(lǐ) 停(tíng) 着(zhe) 一(yí) 辆(liàng) 车(chē)。 [院子裏停著一輛車。]
In the courtyard is parked a car. (A car is parked in the courtyard.)
今(jīn) 天(tiān) 爬(pá) 山(shān)， 明(míng) 天(tiān) 野(yě) 营(yíng)。 [今天爬山，明天野營。]
Today climb mountains, tomorrow camp outdoors. This is an example of a pro-drop sentence.
The subject of this sentence (for instance, "we" or "I" or "our school group") would be determined by context.
游(yóu) 泳(yǒng) 我(wǒ) 最(zuì) 拿(ná) 手(shǒu)。
Swimming I am the best (as compared with other activities, such as running). (I'm the best at swimming.)
Mandarin is often classified as an SVO language, because verbs precede rather than follow objects in simple sentences, but Mandarin also has many characteristics of SOV languages like Turkish. This is clearest in word order, where almost all modifiers of nouns, verbs and adjectives precede the head (modified item), as in SOV languages, rather than follow the head, as in SVO languages. Hence
1. Prepositional phrases modifying a verb precede the verb
2. Genitive constructions precede the head noun
3. Relative clauses precede the head noun
4. Adjectives precede nouns
5. The standard of comparison in a comparative adjective precedes the adjective

Furthermore, Chinese uses postpositions in many constructions rather than prepositions, for example:
桌(zhuō)子(zi)上(shàng)
"table-on" = on the table
房(fáng)子(zi)里(lǐ)面(miàn) [房子裏面]
"house-inside" = inside the house
Mandarin also relies on the formation of adjectival phrases rather than subordination, for example:
被(bèi)我(wǒ)骑(qí)过(guò)的(de)马(mǎ) [被我騎過的馬]
"by me ridden horse" = the horse that I have ridden
给(gěi)人(rén)烦(fán)恼(nǎo)的(de)事(shì)情(qing) [給人煩惱的事情]
"(give people worries)'s matter" or "to people worrisome matter" = matter that worries people
Moreover, verb phrases come at the end of a clause if the object or indirect object is "marked." For example, there are two types of accusative cases in Mandarin. Accusative I is the more commonly found case.
Accusative II results in a change of state in the object, and implies a stronger sense in which something is done to the object, and is marked with the prefix 把 bǎ and by a movement of the verb phrase to the end of the clause.

我(wǒ)打(dǎ)破(pò)了(le)盘(pán)子(zi)。 [我打破了盤子。]
I broke the plate. (Accusative I), versus
我(wǒ)把(bǎ)盘(pán)子(zi)打(dǎ)破(pò)了(le)。[我把盤子打破了。]
I (acc.)-plate broke (and it is no longer intact). (Accusative II)
我(wǒ)打(dǎ)了(le)一(yí)个(gè)电(diàn)话(huà)。 [我打了一個電話。]
I hit a telephone (I made a phone call). (Accusative I), versus
我(wǒ)把(bǎ)他(tā)打(dǎ)了(le)一(yí)顿(dùn)。 [我把他打了一頓。]
I him beat (up). (Accusative II)

Similarly, sentences with an indirect object marked by the dative 給/给 gěi– or sentences in the passive construction (with the subject prefixed by 被 bèi–) follow SOV word ordering:
不(bú)要(yào)给(gěi)我(wǒ)拍(pāi)马(mǎ)屁(pì)。 [不要給我拍馬屁。]
Don't (dat.)-me flatter (Don't flatter me).
他(tā)被(bèi)我(wǒ)打(dǎ)了(le)一(yí)顿(dùn)。 [他被我打了一頓。]
He by me beaten (up) (He was beaten up by me).
...

Read More..

Beijing Dialect

Beijing dialect (simplified Chinese: 北京话; traditional Chinese: 北京話; pinyin: Běijīnghuà) is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. The Beijing dialect is the basis of Standard Mandarin, the standard official Chinese spoken language that is used by the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, and Singapore.
Although the Beijing dialect and Standard Mandarin are extremely similar, there are some differences that make it easy for Chinese people to tell between a native of Beijing speaking homegrown Beijing dialect, and a non-native of Beijing speaking Standard Mandarin Distribution.
The term "Beijing dialect" usually refers to the dialect spoken in the urban area of Beijing only. However, linguists have given a broader definition for Beijing Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 北京官话; traditional Chinese: 北京官話; pinyin: Běijīng Guānhuà) that also includes some dialects extremely akin to that of Beijing. For example, the local speech of Chengde, a city north of Beijing, is considered sufficiently close to Beijing dialect to be put into this category. Standard Mandarin is also put into this category, since it is after all based on the local dialect of Beijing. Other examples include the local speech of Hailar, Inner Mongolia; Karamay, Xinjiang; and (increasingly) Shenzhen, Guangdong. Many of these cities are populated by recent Han Chinese immigrants from diverse linguistic backgrounds or their descendants. As a result, the residents of these cities have adopted standard Mandarin (or something very close to it) as the de facto common language.

Phonology
In phonology, Beijing dialect and Standard Mandarin are almost identical. See Standard Mandarin for its phonology charts; the same charts apply to Beijing dialect.
However, there are some striking differences. Most prominently is the proliferation of rhotic vowels. All rhotic vowels are the result of -儿 /-ɹ/, a noun suffix, except for a few words pronounced as /ɑɹ/ that do not have this suffix. In Standard Mandarin, these also occur, but nowhere near the ubiquity and frequency in which they appear in Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as erhua (儿化).
Moreover, Beijing dialect has a few phonetic reductions that are usually considered too "slangy" for use in Standard Mandarin. For example, in fast speech, initial consonants go through lenition if they are in an unstressed syllable: pinyin zh ch sh /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ become r /ɻ/, so 不知道 bùzhīdào "don't know" can sound like bùrīdào (stress is on the first and third syllables); j q x /tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/ become y /j/, so 赶紧去 gǎnjǐnqù "go quickly" can sound like gǎnyǐnqù; pinyin b d g /p t k/ go through voicing to become [b d g]; similar changes also occur on other consonants. Also, final /-n/ and (less frequently) /-ŋ/ (-ng) can fail to close entirely, so that a nasal vowel is pronounced instead of a nasal consonant; for example, 您 nín ends up sounding like "nyih" (nasalized), instead of "nyeen" in Standard Mandarin The tones of Beijing dialect tend to be more exaggerated than Standard Mandarin. In standard Mandarin, the four tones are high flat, high rising, low dipping, and falling; in Beijing dialect, the first two tones are made higher, the third one dips more prominently, and the fourth one falls more.

Vocabulary
Beijing dialect has a lot of words that are considered slangy, and therefore occur much less or not at all in Standard Mandarin. Non-Beijing natives often have trouble understanding what most of these mean. Many of these slangwords have the rhotic suffix -r. Examples include:
倍儿 bèir — very, especially (referring to manner or attribute)
别价 biéjie — do not; usually followed by 呀 if used as an imperative (Usually used when rejecting a favor from close friends)
搓火儿 cuōhuǒr — to be angry
颠儿了 diārle — to leave; to run away
二把刀 èrbǎdāo — a person with limited abilities, klutz
嗬 hè — interjection indicating surprise or doubt
齁儿 hōur — to an extreme extent; used of tastes (usually sweet)
抠门儿 kōumér — stingy, spendthrift
劳驾 láojia — excuse me; heard often on Beijing buses
溜达 liūda — to stroll about; equivalent to standard Mandarin 逛街 or 散步
怂 sóng / 蔫儿 niār — no backbone, spiritless
消停 xiāoting — to finally and thankfully become quiet and calm
辙 zhé — way (to do something); equivalent to standard Mandarin 办法
Note that some of the slang are considered to be tuhua (土话), or "base language", that are carryovers from an older generation and are no longer used amongst more educated individuals, for example:
迄小儿 qíxiǎor — since a young age
晕了菜 yūnlecài — to be disoriented
Others, still, can be construed as neologistic expressions that are used amongst "trendier" crowds:
爽 shuǎng — cool *in relation to a matter*; compare with 酷 (kù) *describes a person*
套瓷儿 tàocír — to toss into the hoop; used of basketball
小蜜 xiǎomì — special female friend *negative connotation*

Grammar
As with phonology and vocabulary, the grammar of the colloquial Beijing dialect utilizes more colloquial expressions than does Standard Mandarin. In general, Standard Mandarin is influenced by Classical Chinese, which makes it more condensed and concise; Beijing dialect is not influenced in this way, and can therefore seem more longwinded — though this is made up by the fact that Beijing dialect is spoken faster and has phonetic reductions (see Phonology section above).
An example:

Standard Mandarin:
今天会下雨，所以出门时要记得带伞。
Jīntiān huì xiàyǔ, suǒyǐ chūmén shí yào jìde dài sǎn.

Beijing dialect:
今儿得下雨，所以出门儿时得记着带伞！
Jīnr děi xiàyǔ, suǒyǐ chūménr shí děi jìzhe dài sǎn!

After having gone through Beijing dialect's phonetic reductions:
Jīr děi xiàyǔ, suǒyǐ chūmér shi děi jìzhe dài sǎn!
It is going to rain today, so remember to bring an umbrella when you go out.

The Beijing dialect sentence would sound too long-winded if used in a context that requires Standard Mandarin (e.g. in writing, or formal speech), though it sounds fine if used among Beijing locals (with Beijing phonetic reductions in place). The Standard Mandarin pronunciation sounds fine if it is used in a context that requires it (e.g. among friends from different Chinese regions), but it is too stilted and short to be able to accommodate all the phonetic reductions of Beijing pronunciation and may be rendered incomprehensible as a result.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
...

Read More..

Tones

The pīnyīn system also uses diacritics for the four tones of Mandarin, usually above a non-medial vowel. Many books printed in China mix fonts, with vowels and tone marks rendered in a different font than the surrounding text, tending to give such pīnyīn texts a typographically ungainly appearance. This style, most likely rooted in early technical limitations, has led many to believe that pīnyīn's rules call for this practice and also for the use of "ɑ" (with no curl over the top) rather than the standard style of the letter "a" found in most fonts. The official rules of Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, however, specify no such practice. Note that tone marks can also appear on consonants in certain vowelless exclamations.

1. The first tone (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pīnyīn vowel: ā (ɑ̄) ē ī ō ū ǖ Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū Ǖ
2. The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ): á (ɑ́) é í ó ú ǘ Á É Í Ó Ú Ǘ
3. The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is marked by a caron/háček (ˇ). It is not the rounded breve
(˘), though a breve is sometimes substituted due to font limitations. ǎ (ɑ̌) ě ǐ ǒ ǔ ǚ Ǎ Ě Ǐ Ǒ Ǔ Ǚ
4. The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a grave accent (ˋ): à (ɑ̀) è ì ò ù ǜ À È Ì Ò Ù Ǜ
The fifth or neutral tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark: a (ɑ) e i o u ü A E I O U Ü
(In some cases, this is also written with a dot before the syllable; for example, ·ma.) These tone marks normally are only used in Mandarin textbooks or in foreign learning texts, but they are essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classic example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones. The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "admonish" and a question particle, respectively. Numbers in place of tone marks
Since most computer fonts do not contain the macron or caron accents, a common convention is to add a digit representing the tone to the end of individual syllables. For example, "tóng" (tong with the rising tone) is
written "tong2". The number used for each tone is as the order listed above (except the "fifth tone", which, in
addition to being numbered 5, is also sometimes not numbered or numbered zero, as in ma0 (吗/嗎, an interrogative marker).

Rules for placing the tone mark

The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows:
If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is i, u, or ü, then the tone mark appears on the
second vowel.
1. In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel.
2. (y and w are not considered vowels for these rules.)

The reasoning behind these rules is in the case of diphthongs and triphthongs, i, u, and ü (and their
orthographic equivalents y and w when there is no initial consonant) are considered medial glides rather than
part of the syllable nucleus in Chinese phonology. The rules ensure that the tone mark always appears on the
nucleus of a syllable.
Another algorithm for determining the vowel on which the tone mark appears is as follows:
1. First, look for an "a" or an "e". If either vowel appears, it takes the tone mark. There are no possible
pinyin syllables that contain both an "a" and an "e".
2. If there is no "a" or "e", look for an "ou". If "ou" appears, then the "o" takes the tone mark.
3. If none of the above cases hold, then the last vowel in the syllable takes the tone mark.

The character "ü"
An umlaut is placed over the letter u when it occurs after the initials l and n in order to represent the sound
[y]. This is necessary in order to distinguish the front high rounded vowel in lü (e.g. 驴/驢 donkey) from the
back high rounded vowel in lu (e.g. 炉/爐 oven). Tonal markers are added on top of the umlaut, as in lǘ.
However, the ü is not used in other contexts where it represents a front high rounded vowel, namely after the
letters j, q, x and y. For example, the sound of the word 鱼/魚 (fish) is transcribed in pīnyīn simply as yú, not
as yǘ. This practice is opposed to Wade-Giles, which always uses ü, and Tongyong Pinyin, which always uses yu. Whereas Wade-Giles needs to use the umlaut to distinguish between chü (pinyin ju) and chu (pinyin zhu), this ambiguity cannot arise with pinyin, so the more convenient form ju is used instead of jü. Genuine ambiguities only happen with nu/nü and lu/lü, which are then distinguished by an umlaut diacritic.
Many fonts or output methods do not support an umlaut for ü or cannot place tone marks on top of ü.
Likewise, using ü in input methods is difficult because it is not present as a simple key on many keyboard layouts. For these reasons v is sometimes used instead by convention. Occasionally, uu (double u), u: (u followed by a colon) or U (capital u) is used in its place.

from Wikipedia
...

Read More..

Pinyin

Pīnyīn, more formally Hànyǔ pīnyīn, is the most common Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. Hànyǔ means the Chinese language[1], and pīnyīn means "spell".[2] Pīnyīn uses the Latin alphabet to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin. The way these letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin does not correspond to any other one particular language that uses the Roman alphabet. For example, the sounds indicated in pīnyīn by b and g correspond more closely to the sounds indicated by p and k in some Western uses of the Latin script, e.g., French. Other letters, like j, q, x or zh, indicate sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in pīnyīn, such as the ian ending, do not correspond to English pronunciations, either. This means that people who have not studied Chinese, or who have studied Chinese but not the pīnyīn system, are likely to severely mispronounce some words if they attempt to pronounce pīnyīn according to their own language spellings. However, this very disregard for conventional pronunciations of the letters has enabled pīnyīn to represent Chinese sounds with economy and internal consistency.

History
In 1954, the Ministry of Education of the PRC assigned a Committee (Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language) to reform the written language. This committee developed Hànyǔ Pīnyīn based upon existing systems of that time (Gwoyeu Romatzyh of 1928, Latinxua Sin Wenz of 1931, it uses the diacritic markings from Zhùyīn)[3]. The main force behind pīnyīn was Zhōu Yǒuguāng (born 1905, turning
103 in 2008 in good health). [4] [5] Zhōu Yǒuguāng was working in a New York bank when he decided to return to China to help rebuild the country after the war. He became an economics professor in Shanghai. The government assigned him to help the development of a new romanisation system. The switch to language and writing largely saved him from the wrath of the Cultural Revolution of Máo Zédōng.
A first draft was published on February 12 1956. The first edition of Hànyǔ Pīnyīn was approved and adopted at the Fifth Session of the 1st National People's Congress on February 11, 1958. It was then introduced to primary schools as a way to teach Standard Mandarin pronunciation, and used to improve the literacy rate among adults. In 2001, the Chinese Government issued the National Common Language Law, providing a legal basis for applying pīnyīn.[6] Hànyǔ Pīnyīn superseded older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1892) and Chinese Postal Map Romanization, and replaced zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland
China. Hànyǔ Pīnyīn was adopted in 1979 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as the standard romanization for modern Chinese(ISO-7098:1991). It has also been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and many other international institutions. It has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers. Chinese speaking Standard Mandarin at home use pīnyīn to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know; however, for the many Chinese who do not use Standard Mandarin at home, pīnyīn is used to teach them the Standard Mandarin pronunciation of words when they learn them in elementary school.
Pīnyīn vowels are pronounced similarly to vowels in Romance languages, and most consonants are similar to English. A pitfall for English-speaking novices is, however, the unusual pronunciation of x, q, j, c, zh, ch, sh and z (and sometimes -i) and the unvoiced pronunciation of d, b, and g. More information on the pronunciation of all pinyin letters in terms of English approximations is given further below.
The pronunciation of Chinese is generally given in terms of initials and finals, which represent the segmental phonemic portion of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of medials (semivowels coming before the vowel), the nucleus vowel, and coda (final vowel or consonant).

Conventional order (excluding w and y), derived from the Zhùyīn) system, is:
b p m f d t n l g k h j q x zh ch sh r z c s

Finals
In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA, the second indicates pīnyīn for a standalone (no-initial) form, and the third indicates pīnyīn for a combination with an initial. Other than finals modified by an -r, which are omitted, the following is an exhaustive table of all possible finals. 1 The only syllable-final consonants in standard Mandarin are -n and -ng, and -r which is attached as a
grammatical suffix. Chinese syllables ending with any other consonant is either from a non-Mandarin language (southern Chinese languages such as Cantonese, or minority languages of China), or it indicates the use of a non-pinyin Romanization system (where final consonants may be used to indicate tones).

Rules given in terms of English pronunciation
All rules given here in terms of English pronunciation are approximate, as several of these sounds do not correspond directly to sounds in English.

Pronunciation of initials
b [p] unaspirated p, as in spit
p [pʰ] aspirated p, as in pit
m [m] as in English mom
f [f] as in English fun
d [t] unaspirated t, as in stop
t [tʰ] aspirated t, as in top
n [n] as in English nit
l [l] as in English love
g [k] unaspirated k, as in skill
k [kʰ] aspirated k, as in kill
h [x] like the English h if followed by "a"; otherwise it is pronounced more roughly (not unlike the Scots ch)
j [tɕ] like q, but unaspirated. (To get this sound, first take the sound halfway between joke and check, and then slowly pass it backwards along the tongue until it is entirely clear of the tongue tip.) While this exact sound is not used in English, the closest match is the j in ajar, not the s in Asia; this means that "Beijing" is pronounced like "bay-jing", not like "beige-ing".
q [tɕʰ] like church; pass it backwards along the tongue until it is free of the tongue tip
x [ɕ] like sh, but take the sound and pass it backwards along the tongue until it is clear of the tongue tip; very similar to the final sound in German ich, and to huge or Hugh in some English dialects
zh [ʈʂ] ch with no aspiration (take the sound halfway between joke and church and curl it upwards); very similar to merger in American English, but not voiced
ch [ʈʂʰ] as in chin, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to nurture or tree in American English, but strongly aspirated
sh [ʂ] as in shinbone, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to undershirt in American English
r [ʐ] or [ɻ] similar to the English r in rank, but with the lips spread and with the tongue curled upwards
z [ts] unaspirated c (halfway between beds and bets) (more common example is suds)
c [tsʰ] like ts, aspirated (more common example is bats)
s [s] as in sun
w [w] or [u] may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as w or u as in English
y [j] or [i] may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as y or i as in English

Pronunciation of finals
The following is an exhaustive list of all finals in Standard Mandarin. Those ending with a final -r are listed at
the end.
To find a given final:
Remove the initial consonant. For zh-, ch-, sh-, both letters should be removed, they are single consonants spelt with two letters.
1. Although y- and w- are consonants nevertheless they may be considered as part of finals and do not remove those. Syllables beginning with y- and w- may be considered as standalone forms of finals "i, u, ü" and finals beginning with "i-, u-, ü-".
2. If a syllable begins with j-, q-, x-, or y-, and the final is -u or starts with -u-, then change -u or -u- to -ü or -ü-.

Orthography

Letters
Pīnyīn differs from other romanizations in several aspects, such as the following:
Syllables starting with u are written as w in place of u (e.g. ueng is written as weng). Standalone u is written as wu.
Syllables starting with i are written as y in place of i (e.g. iou is written as you). Standalone i is written as yi.
Syllables starting with ü are written as yu in place of ü (e.g. üe is written as yue).
ü is written as u when there is no ambiguity (such as ju, qu, and xu), but written as ü when there are corresponding u syllables (such as lü and nü). In such situations where there are corresponding u syllables, it is often replaced with v on a computer, making it easier to type on a standard keyboard.
When preceded by a consonant, iou, uei, and uen are simplified as iu, ui, and un(which do not represent the actual pronunciation).
As in zhùyīn, what are actually pronounced as buo, puo, muo, and fuo are given a separate representation: bo, po, mo, and fo.
The apostrophe (') is often used before a, o, and e to separate syllables in a word where ambiguity could arise, especially when omitting tone marks, e.g., pi'ao (simplified Chinese: 皮袄; traditional Chinese: 皮襖) vs. piao (票), and Xi'an (西安) vs. xian (先).
Eh alone is written as ê; elsewhere as e. Schwa is always written as e.
zh, ch, and sh can be abbreviated as ẑ, ĉ, and ŝ (z, c, s with a circumflex). However, the shorthands are rarely used due to difficulty of entering them on computers.
ng has the uncommon shorthand of ŋ.
Most of the above are used to avoid ambiguity when writing words of more than one syllable in pīnyīn. For example uenian is written as wenyan because it is not clear which syllables make up uenian; uen-ian, uen-i-an and u-en-i-an are all possible combinations whereas wenyan is unambiguous because we, nya, etc. do not
exist in pīnyīn.

from Wikipedia
...

Read More..