the place to start after Chinese tones. I mean, how else can you learn Chinese sounds

so you can begin to speak Chinese without the overwhelming complexity of Chinese characters

as you're just starting out?

The "Chinese alphabet" is commonly known as PinYin which is a Romanization of the Chinese

language. But what does that really mean? It's the TAKING of Chinese sounds and putting

letters to it, so that we can learn to speak Chinese.

Chinese PinYin has two categories, the initials (that begin a sound) and the finals (which

end the sound). The initials should look pretty familiar to you and many of them have the

same sounds as in English.

And then there are the finals which are the ending portion of a Chinese sound, but you'll

find these are very different from the sounds we would normally attribute to these letters.

To make learning the Chinese alphabet easy, I prefer to focus on just these basic sounds

and then a few general guidelines on how to put them together in different combinations.

That way, the Chinese alphabet is much easier!

If you find you need a more in-depth explanation on each of these sounds or how to combine

them, I've put together an easy-to-read book that I hope will be of benefit to you.