What is Pinyin?
‘Pinyin’ (sometimes called ‘HanYu Pinyin’ or ‘Chinese Pinyin’) is a way to represent Chinese characters phonetically using the Roman alphabet. It was created specifically to make teaching and learning Chinese easier and was formalized as a system in 1979. Other systems are used, but Pinyin is by far the most widespread and accepted.

Every syllable in Pinyin represents one character. Whilst many letters used in Pinyin are pronounced in the same was as English, some are not, so it’s important to check and practice your pronunciation, especially if you’re just beginning to learn Chinese.