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Mandarin Chinese, also known as standard Chinese or Pǔtōnghuà (普通话), has five distinct tones, four which are tonal and one which is neutral and pronounced without emphasis. <ref>http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm</ref>
Mandarin Chinese, also known as standard Chinese or Pǔtōnghuà (普通话), has five distinct tones, four which are tonal and one which is neutral and pronounced without emphasis. <ref>http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm</ref>
There are a multitude of ways to represent Chinese pronounciation, but you will most likely encounter PinYin or Wade-Giles in English works. Wade-Giles is the older of the two systems and is slowly being phased out in favor of PinYin. Check out the United States Library of Congress website for up to date information on conversion standards: <ref>http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/</ref>. I will stick strictly to the PinYin romanization as it is the simplest and most common.
There are a multitude of ways to represent Chinese pronounciation, but you will most likely encounter PinYin or Wade-Giles in English works. Wade-Giles is the older of the two systems and is slowly being phased out in favor of PinYin. Check out the United States [[Library of Congress]] website for up to date information on conversion standards: <ref>http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/</ref>. I will stick strictly to the PinYin romanization as it is the simplest and most common.
In PinYin the first four tones are represented using accent marks. The neutral fifth tone is represented by the absence of an accent mark. It is also acceptable to follow the romanized syllable with a number to represent the tone (first through fourth), no number is needed for the fifth tone. For example:
In PinYin the first four tones are represented using accent marks. The neutral fifth tone is represented by the absence of an accent mark. It is also acceptable to follow the romanized syllable with a number to represent the tone (first through fourth), no number is needed for the fifth tone. For example: