Before I started learning Chinese in earnest I would sometimes turn the Chinese keyboard on on my phone. By default it opens up a small square divided into nine parts, which is meant for drawing traditional Chinese characters. I have never seen anyone who is a native speaker use that input method and it takes forever to make basic sentences. Basically, while fun, it is extremely inefficient (though that method is, however, a great way to practice writing characters).
That’s Where Pinyin Comes In
There is no way to look at a character such as 菜 and be able to read it out loud without Pinyin. Pinyin is a Latin alphabet based system used by every Chinese speaker. It’s how pronunciation is taught in China and it’s how characters are typed out on a keyboard. Let’s go back to that character I used earlier: 菜 (meaning “cuisine/dishes”). The pinyin for that character is: cài. Looking at the pinyin, I can tell exactly how to pronounce it, tone and all.
The pinyin system is split into two different sets called “initials” and “finals.” The “initials” are all consonant letter combinations, and the “finals” are vowel and vowel-consonant combinations. The pronunciation of the letters is a bit different from English and there are a few fun combinations like “zh” and “ch.” A big difference in pinyin from English is the addition of “ü” (German learners and speakers rejoice!).
Don’t Panic!
You might be concerned by now. The thought could have crossed your mind that you will have to learn both how a character is written not just in its traditional form but in pinyin as well. This was a question I asked early on, so you are definitely not alone. Relax. You don’t need to know how to spell every word in pinyin; Pinyin is phonetic, so you can sound it out. When I text my friend Gary in Chinese “今天晚上你忙不忙？” （Jīntiān wǎnshàng nǐ máng bù máng), meaning “are you busy tonight?”, I typed in the pinyin based on how it is said, not some spelling I have memorized. As they always say when trying to read a tricky long English word: “Just sound it out!”
In fact, I have found that when you ask a native speaker of Chinese for the pinyin of a word; more often than not they have to pull out their phone and type it in. Again, you do not need to memorize both the pinyin and the character appearance!
See? It Can Be Easy
I hope that I’ve been able to help you understand the foundation for learning how to speak Chinese properly. Don’t listen to people who say that Chinese is that hardest language out there. As you’ve just read, it isn’t actually that bad to learn how to pronounce new characters!
I tried learning Korean for short time, but every time I tried to pronounce a word, I was always wrong. ALWAYS. I can almost always pronounce Chinese words right the first time around when someone is teaching me a new word, or when I look at the pinyin below that character in Google translate. Pinyin makes everyone’s lives easier, so learn how to use it correctly and you’ll be set.
Although this video is in Japanese I watch it whenever I feel discouraged. You CAN learn Chinese! NEVER GIVE UP!