Introduction
As a student of Standard (Mandarin, Putonghua) Chinese, you know how important it is to acquire a good pronunciation of Chinese words. Good pronunciation eases communication and makes the language learning process more rewarding. Poor pronunciation can cause confusion, hamper communication, and lead to frustration for the learner. Learning the standard pronunciation of Standard Chinese or Putonghua requires the learning of consonants and vowels whose articulations and sounds are often different from those of English, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, or even other Chinese dialects. Sometimes these differences are subtle, and sometimes they are very obvious.
Native Chinese use Hanzi characters like 熊 and 猫 for reading and writing. These characters work well for native speakers, but they provide no systematic indication of the sounds of words. As a result, young children and foreigners find it easier to begin to learn Chinese using Roman letters like the ones used in English to represent the sounds of words. There are several alternative romanizations for Putonghua, including Hanyu Pinyin, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatyzh and several others. However, Hanyu Pinyin is now the most widely used system for teaching Standard Chinese pronunciation. It is now referred to simply as "Pinyin".
The Hanyu Pinyin standard was officially adopted by the government of the People’s Republic of China on February 11, 1958. More recently, on January 1, 2009 it became the official Romanization system of Taiwan. Other bodies adopting the Hanyu Pinyin standard include Singapore, the UN, and the US Library of Congress.