The "sleeping cats" guide to pinyin pronunciation

How much does pinyin confuse you? Which is the worst part for you?

In this short post, I show how "cats & zeds" will help you overcome a common pronuncation mistake. (PS. I know Americans say "zee" not "zed" - but for this to work, pretend you don't.)

Pinyin is the system which provides a method for pronouncing the Chinese characters using a Roman alphabet (and tone marks). It was developed by the Chinese for the Chinese - and let's face it, although it's the system we use in the West, if Westerners had designed it, I think we would have used different letters to represent the different sounds.

c is pronounced "ts",  z is "dz", zh is like "j", x is "sh" (kinda) ... sigh.

For me, the parts I got wrong in the beginning were mainly 'c' and 'z', and even today I find myself stumbling over words like "cún​zài" (存在 - to exist) when I talk too fast for my brain.

You might have a similar problem. In fact, you might not even realise you have the problem!

For example, when I meet other students of Mandarin in London, and I listen to sentences like "I live in London" (wǒ​ zhù​ zài​ Lún​dūn​), the 'zai' is often pronounced 'tsai' and not 'dzai' - so I know I'm not the only one.

Perhaps this might help ...
    cats & zeds
    [c]a[ts] & [z]e[dz]
    c is prounced 'ts'  &  z is pronounced 'dz'

Test yourself - how do you pronounce 汉字 (Hàn​zì​ - Chinese character), 现在 (xiàn​zài​ - now), 菜单 (cài​dān​ - menu), 词典 (cí​diǎn​ - dictionary)?

So cún​zài would (phonetically) be [ts]un-[dz]ai. Got it?
Cats & Zeds. Got it?

Good.