lesson 1

This Chinese character literally means the “common language”.

• 汉语

  hàn yǔ

• 普通话

  pǔ tōng huà

• 国语

  guó yǔ

• 华语

  huá yǔ

________ is the phonetic system of Chinese language.

• Roman alphabet

• 汉字

  hàn zì

• Pinyin

• syllables

_____ refers to the height and rise and fall of sounds inherent in Chinese syllables that can distinguish meaning.

• tone

• Mandarin Chinese

• syllables

• Chinese Pinyin

A syllable in Chinese consists of three parts: tone, initial, and final.

• True

• False

• Maybe

• I don't know

The _______ is high and level. It is important to keep one's voice even (almost monotone) across the whole syllable when pronouncing the first tone. It is represented by a straight horizontal line above a letter in pinyin.

• first tone

• second tone

• third tone

• fourth tone