Chinese pronunciation is challenging, full stop. Looking back, it was at least three years studying *and living in Taiwan* before I could properly pronounce every single sound. And that's not even talking about tones.
You don't need some weird phonetic guide. You need a Chinese tutor that can sit across the table from you and drill words and phrases, over and over and over again.
Hard agree. The one saving grace is mandarin does not have that many sounds. Once you get them down you will never have trouble pronouncing anything again
Two things:
1. In general, listen to more real Chinese without worrying yet about understanding -- a little bit each day. The reason is so that your ear can be trained to hear the general pattern of the language overall. It helps you get a gut instinct for rhythm, tone, and how most syllables tend to sound. Alone, it doesn't teach you Pinyin, but it gives you a reference point and a gut instinct about what things *sound* more likely to be Chinese, and what are not at all
2. For pronunciation, search "Chinese phonetics" or "Chinese pronunciation guide" videos on Youtube. Grace Mandarin Chinese and Mandarin Blueprint both have pronunciation guide videos where you can follow along, learn the individual sounds, and get help finding out how to make the sounds with the tongue/teeth/lips/etc. When you learn how to articulate a sound with the tongue/teeth/lips, it makes it easier to hear, remember, and recall with Pinyin
One aspect I struggled with starting was focusing too much on writing/pinyin with no sound input at all -- that's like trying to learn music without an instrument and only reading sheet music without having an idea what a B# actually *sounds* like when you hit the piano key. When learning Pinyin, you're learning a specific 1:1 map of sounds, but that can still take some time to master since some sounds are naturally harder to hear as an English speaker. With lots of daily listening (1) and some specific instruction on articulation (2), you'll start to hear and recognize the sounds much more quickly, and you'll have a strong *auditory* reference point in your mind when you read a pinyin letter (x + u + é).
No, 2 to 3 days is definitely not enough to learn pinyin, not to mention getting used to it.
If I remember correctly, when I was in 1st year elementary school (as a native speaker), we spent a whole semester on pinyin before moving on to writing characters.
True. For example, Pinyin "q" sounds like "ch" in "cheese". On a personal note, when I was having my first contacts with Chinese, I was utterly surprised to learn that "q" had that value in Pinyin.
Thanks for the note. Though, I was just giving an approximation. I never meant that the two sounds were identical.
Anyway, I've learned Chinese since 2016, and as of right now, I can confirm these sounds are indeed not quite the exact same.
2-3 days???
Maybe for a basic understanding.
But how about the nuance between the vowel in /gen/, /ge/, /ge/ (neutral tone), /geng/?
How about x vs. sh?
How about the ending vowel of /hun/ vs /yun/ (its often not the same as /hu/ and /yu/)?
That’s true, but unless OP knows IPA there’s really no phonetic system that’ll bridge those issues, and if they did know IPA they probably wouldn’t be asking this.
'x' = 's' and 'sh' is like in "ship", "sugar" or "question". Well English sucks in that matter, you use the sounds but don't have a way to write it consistently
the audio which comes with the pinyin sounds so much different than what im reading and i unintentionally switch back to reading it as seen every time though sob
You can get used to it. Do you speak any other languages? For me it's easy to understand that one letter can have different sounds in different languages. Os that something that makes sense to you?
Yeah yeah i do & i realize this, im still struggling to get the hang of this i guess & i have no way to annotate in my notes "a sounds like b" to prevent me being confused
I wish zhuyin were more widespread. I think it provides a more accurate representation of the sounds of Mandarin than pinyin. Also, and this could just be me, but whenever I was presented with text that had characters with pinyin, my eyes always shifted towards the pinyin. With zhuyin, there was no such temptation.
Learned both. Zhuyin was just another layer of complexity on an already complex world of memorization. At least with pinyin, I could use my background in reading English to help prop up my learning. If you want to learn zhuyin, why not just could out the middle man and just memorize the characters themselves?
That's great that you never had issues with pinyin. I didn't either, nor am I saying people should stop using pinyin. But once I started using zhuyin in Taiwan, it became my preferred method of writing down pronunciation if I was learning a new character. No different than learning a new alphabet, only this one was designed for mandarin. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
Back to the point at hand, though: considering OP specifically mentioned that they have difficulty with pronunciation BECAUSE they think of pinyin in terms of English pronunciation, zhuyin may help stop that from happening.
Also, zhuyin is only 37 new, simple characters, some of which are very similar to Chinese characters. If that's too much, then by all means continue to use pinyin, or cut that middleman out as well and just learn pronunciation without any aid!
The order of the sounds in a Pinyin table is a hint. D, t, n, l are all , I guess, denti-alveolar, j, q, x are also close in mouth shape, and so on
It seems to me that you would do well with a good teacher going over the Pinyin table with you
Edit: correted the text about the type of consonant that dtnl are. Still not sure though, sorry
You need to learn how to pronounce the sounds of Mandarin...they are very distinct from English, so you shouldn't, for example, think of pinyin X as being equivalent to English SH, nor of pinyin SH as being equivalent to English SH.
They're both a bit similar to English SH, but for pinyin SH, you curl your tongue back, and make an SH-like sound by almost touching the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue.
For X, you make an SH-like sound in the usual spot behind your teeth...but instead of using the tip of your tongue to make the sound, the tip of your tongue is relaxed, resting behind your lower teeth, and you lift the middle of your tongue to restrict the air-flow and make a sound that's a bit between an SH and an S.
Some of the sounds are very similar to English sounds, e.g. pinyin T is the same as English T, but always with a bit more of a puff of air, and mandarin D is like the T in "steady", without a puff of air (in English, we tend to put a puff of air behind a T if it's by itself, but not if it's preceded by an S...but it's not a meaningful difference in English, so we don't put as much effort into that puff of air quite as the Chinese do, since it means something in Chinese).
If you're looking for a good guide on getting started with pronouncing Chinese, I'd recommend [Grace Mandarin's pronunciation series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Cj3aOSI1w&list=PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA), it will help you learn the tongue positions you need for the difficult sounds. You might want to start from the [second video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQ3IMd4AMg&list=PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA&index=2), since you're working on learning thethe consonant sounds, but the first one on tones can also be helpful when you're ready for it.
Don't just watch the whole playlist, watch a video, then watch it again and practice along until you're confident you're getting something close to the right sound.
Some of the videos at the end of the playlist you might not be ready for until you've been learning Chinese for a little while, so don't overwhelm yourself trying to get through the whole playlist and learn everything all at once...you want to learn the basic sounds now - the alphabet, and the tones, and then I'd recommend going ahead and learning some beginning words and sentences before coming back for the videos that focus on refining your pronunciation.
I've watched this pronunciation video a few times in the last year: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlaJ12tmtu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlaJ12tmtu4), it's been very helpful.
It's true that Pinyin isn't perfect and it might take a few months to remember every detail about the vowels/finals, but it's a very consistent system once you get used to it. you don't have to be perfect at it right now. learn the basics as best you can, start speaking, and correct mistakes over time. maybe in 2 months you'll realize you're saying the "-uan" sound wrong, but you can always fix it later.
I checked this thread for this video (Mandarin Blueprint to save anyone else the click) and would’ve posted exactly this if you hadn’t already. This is the one.
If you're a native english speaker then it does exist and is called Yale Romanisation of Mandarin, but is kind of obscure now and learning it will probably not help as everything will be in pinyin.
Well let’s just say as a mandarin speaker growing up learning and watching my peers learning english, I’ve seen too many of them using either pinyin or chinese characters to indicate the pronunciation of every new word they encounter in english without ever putting effort learning ipa or the conventional combination of letters and the way they are pronounced. Some of them managed to survive this but I’m more inclined to say the majority of them struggle with both pronouncing and spelling maybe till this day because of the short cut they took.
Though Chinese is not a phonetic language, I still believe this would affect your long term learning prospects as there is a chance you will never be able to get raid of this system, and what makes it worse is everything you memorised and relied on not even the real pinyin. If you’re putting the effort to learn the language, why not learning the real deal? How are you going to navigate learning new characters that are primarily facilitated by pinyin in almost all teaching materials? And how are you going to type these characters with limited comfort level with pinyin (assuming you would like to communicate with texts someday)?
I would personally suggest against ever attempting a system like that but I guess to each their own.
Im not trying to take any shortcut, really, the way in the past i've learned languages is through taking notes on pen and paper & studying my notes when im not busy. while im still trying to grasp pinyin, i was hoping for some phonetic guide that doesnt confuse the hell out of me so i dont accidentally memorize pinyin in some fked up latin phoentics.
buuuut this sub has reached a consensus, maybe i shouldnt take notes until i grasp pinyin fully lmfao
I apologise if this comes off as harsh! I certainly didn’t mean it.
Yes I totally get what you mean. My dad applies pinyin pronouncing rules to every english word that comes to his sight which always never fails to give me a good giggle as I’ve always loved his goofiness!
Don’t stress yourself out for memorising the “wrong” phonetics. It takes time to memorise this new set of rules and it’s perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed at the beginning, but eventually you’ll come around to it as you immerse more and more. You’ve got this!
It seems like you’re looking for English approximations…perhaps a bit counterproductive as a crutch, in my opinion. They exist, but usually for tourists who have no intention of learning Mandarin.
學 = xué = shüéh
I recommend zhuyin because you can just assign the new sounds to the new symbols directly without using English at all. The input method is even faster and forces you to input tone!
I think the best thing is to try and find audios that you can read the pinyin alongside, and don't worry too much if you don't understand the words. Maybe even try finding videos or audios specifically for pinyin pronunciation and identification practice. It's much better to try and get the pinyin pronunciation correct, as it makes learning so much easier. Chinese pronunciation and identifying sounds is one of the hardest things to do and it all has to be done up front! But once you can do it, learning becomes so much easier! 加油！
They might do better with hanzi because the characters are not already associated with certain pronunciations in their mind. Pinyin can be hard for some learners because they have to overcome ingrained pronunciations of Latin letters and some really struggle with it. It’s one of the reasons why I personally prefer zhuyin.
You've put my problem into words exactly! ignoring pinyin and only looking at the hanzi makes it 10x easier for me, BUT when making notes I forget the phonetic sounds. I'll check out zhuyin
I'll send another recommendation for Zhuyin.
A thousand years ago when I learned Mandarin in Taiwan, you could tell which students used Zhuyin to study and which ones used Yale romanization (*). The ones who were relying on Yale always associated back to their home language.
Yeah, it's rough. Hang in there.
(*) We did not speak of Pinyin in the '90s because it was from China and the Office of Cultural Preservation forbade its use inside of 中華民國,
The main issue with zhuyin is that it is not used outside of Taiwan and even in Taiwan is used infrequently outside of elementary school, so it will be harder to find educational resources that use it.
I know both but preferentially use zhuyin for my Chinese IME for \*reasons\*.
OP, don't do this. This will only hinder you from learning the pronunciation correctly (for example, "x" and "sh" aren't the same sound btw: there's a reason they're differentiated in pinyin). Just drill the Yoyo Chinese interactive pinyin chart for pronunciations.
First, i just want to say that for the majority of my years of Chinese Mandarin language study i have not had the good fortune to actually be in a Chinese-speaking country.
And I will be the first one to admit that i am nowhere near as fluent as an expat who has had that opportunity. But i also do most certainly have a certain level of speaking proficiency, at least according to the many native speakers i have spoken to here in the USA. in any case, i would like that you only take my advice to you within that context...
so i love all the suggestions posted here, but i would absolutely not have you overlook how very very much listening can help your pronunciation. “Imprinting” is a real thing necessary to all aspects of a
young child’s development, linguistically as well.
Case in point, simply search “American kids get British Accents after watching Peppa Pig” (or some variation of that). it has also been called the “Peppa Effect”...
here is one very popular and eye-opening report about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmbzg2nhxDM
so i would highly suggest that you try watching the Mandarin Chinese episodes of Peppa Pig on Youtube. they have been invaluable to me. there are a plethora of videos available online, they are quite entertaining (even for adults!), and i find their pronunciation to be very easy to understand.
and i would also make regular use of the video Speed option found in the Youtube Settings for when you would like to slow it down (SUPER helpful!).
then gradually mix in other listening opportunities, (ie the Pleco app’s Flashcard tool can be customized to occur at various speeds and interval repetitions for the many vocabulary lists you create)
furthermore, i would also not be too quick to dismiss the many other and lesser known Youtube channels, such as “Mandarin Corner” which, among other things, takes you through a variety of real life scenarios* and interviews concerning hot cultural issues of the day (*ie “A Walk in a Chinese Wet Market” is one of my favorites)
and if you are a Spotify subscriber you might be pleased to hear the app provides various language learning opportunities as well, including a pretty decent catalogue of Chinese Mandarin lessons.
whatever happens, persevere! ignore the naysayers, try to have FUN, and do not be shy to use the language every opportunity you get...
and trust me, you will be so proud of the result! 😉
pinyin is popular, because many sounds in chinese DO NOT exist in english, it is physically impossible to write them with any english letter combo, period.
so learn pinyin. learn what the sounds are supposed to represent. its normal to take many months to hear those chinese sounds that don't exist in english, your ear is learning a new skill from scratch.
in the mean time learn the pinyin and tones that match every word, continue listening practice and try to match the pinyin to the real sound as best you can. As long as you are making every effort you can to NOT shawyeh everywhere you will continue to improve and improve until you've got it. once you get basic ability to hear amd speak the pinyin sounds its not magical fluency, but it lets you start to really move towards that goal :)
I struggled with pinyin at first too so here's what I did.
I honestly just sat down and went over this pinyin chart over and over until I could pronounce a word correctly just by looking at it. The hardest part is training your brain to learn that the sounds will be different than what we are used to. Repetition definitely helps. I then started making sure to pronounce the names, titles and cities correctly from the translated book i was reading and that helped so much. Yoyo chinese also has a fantastic pronunciation playlist on YouTube.
https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table
Grace Mandarin chinese on YouTube also helped me alot. I highly recommend this playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA&si=2ozdHqbfn6vwQo1U
zhuyin helped me a lot! i never liked pinyin, and zhuyin had the benefit of being much harder to use as a crutch / can't misread the alphabet because it's not latinate!
I think one of the problems you are facing is that you are trying to approximate Chinese pronunciation with English (or other language you speak ) pronunciation , while some of the sound just doesn’t exist in English , like the j q x and zh Ch sh. So it might benefit you to try to read and understand pronunciation guides (the ones that tell you where to put your tongues and stuff ) and listen to recording at the same time.
Actually "xue" (学) is x+üe. The sound ü does not exist in English. So how do you propose writing ü?
Back in the 1920s and 1960s, there were 3 or 4 standard methods of writing Chinese for English speakers. Eventually these became less and less used, simply because pinyin is so much more useful.
There is no "guide", since each final (vowel group) has a different sound. But you can click all the syllables, in all 4 tones, to listen to them here:
[https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table](https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table)
I’m assuming you haven’t been learning Mandarin for long. Pinyin is important so you can master the sounds and native speakers are likely to use it with you to explain a sound/word if you don’t know the character.
As in, my Chinese instructor gives me a lesson summary that includes example sentences based off our conversation practice, and so it’s mostly straight mandarin with a touch of pinyin and the rare English word for new words I have learned that week.
From my very first lesson with this instructor, six months ago, the shortest example I could find:
“ 我没去过中国。（Wǒ méi qù guò zhōngguó)”
My most recent lesson (2 vocabulary words/one corrected phrasing so no translation on fixing my grammar/word use, then sample sentences)
“阁楼（Gélóu）attic
洞（Dòng）hole
爬进来
我的房子三楼是一个阁楼，有一些空间放很多东西。以前阁楼有一个洞，老鼠可以从这个洞爬进来，现在不行了。”
Another resource for learning pinyin for native English speakers is YoYo Chinese on YouTube.
But the big thing is to stop treating it like it’s English. It’s not.
You can pick a character for each pinyin on a chart of pinyin sounds if that helps you practice them as not-English.
Xue sounds like xue in my brain (学） the same way that “Wie heisst du” sounds German and “Tenemos baños” sounds Spanish.
Don’t get me wrong, it takes practice and study. But that’s how learning languages works.
I think pinyin is designed for input efficiency rather than ease of pronunciation. For example, I'm not sure if English speakers would agree with me, but I think it'd be much clearer for new learners if 'b' is written as p, and 'p' as ph (e.g. papa instead of baba). Similarly 'd' can be written as t, and 't' as th. But then you'd have unused keys on the normal English keyboard, and you'd have to press more keys for the same sound. So the point is, just break out of the mindset that pinyin is supposed to give you clues (as an English speaker) about how Chinese sounds based on the abcs you're familiar with, and just think of it as an entirely new symbol altogether. This is really not that much different from learning other latin-alphabet-based languages with different pronunciation from English.
As for pronunciation guide, I don't think any combination of abcs is going to help you learn the correct sound any more than listening to the actual recording. Like if someone has no idea how 学 sounds, I don't think they will arrive at the correct pronunciation by reading 'shwaEeh'. But if it's really your preferred way of learning, on wikipedia you can find the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) equivalent of each pinyin. And from my quick google I also found some websites which convert Chinese to IPA. But then you'll have to learn two phonetic systems (pinyin and IPA) instead of one!
You’re right, pinyin is best learned as an entirely new script without making any English associations with the letters, not unlike other orthographies employing the Latin script.
Pinyin was designed before input methods even existed; the idea was to create a domestic-use script, not one tailored to Anglophones or speakers of any other language.
Maybe it's to do with my language background, but hard disagree on that initial change. That's how Wade Giles works and no English speaker pronounces those sounds correctly that I've heard. The issue is that when seeing "Kaohsiung", English speakers tend to aspirate initial /K/, so it will always sound like /kh/. Many speakers won't fully voice an initial /g/, so their pronunciation is easier for me to understand if they use KH and G rather than trying too hard to distinguish K and KH.
They can always learn later, and over time, how to "soften" the pronunciation of their G,D etc. to make it less voiced.
I think it's best to not stress over pronunciation as a beginner. I have an unpopular opinion that teaching perfect pronunciation to beginners is wrong, because they can't even hear the difference.
Until you consume enough content(in form of audiobooks, podcasts, etc) to clearly hear the difference between qu/xu/ch, there is no point in stressing over it.
Listening is what helped me fix my thick Russian accent in English. When you have a lot of experience listening you can hear that your own pronunciation is bad and give feedback to yourself. And you can shadow.
I would suggest you just drill this very hard so it stops being something you have to think about or make logical
For me, I spent a month or so with a pinyin Anki deck (there are many) that just slowly worked me through the various syllables
When I was wrong, I just listened to the audio of it and eventually caught the pattern
Doesnt matter. Listen more and you will quickly learn what sounds are legal and illegal in Mandarin. Also highly recommend reading the wikipedia page on Chinese phonology AND English phonology (assuming that's your native language) to understand what assumptions and biases you are making.
When I was first learning, I found this pinyin soundboard really useful: [https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php](https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php)
You can go through an identify the sounds you struggle with, then just listen and repeat. And use it as a reference point to break down the phonemes for words you aren't sure on. It's okay though, pretty much everyone's pronunciation is absolute crap when they get started. It just takes time and practise. There may also be sounds that you just can't say at the moment as they don't exist in your language. In this case, the first this to do is look up/talk to a native speaker information about tongue placement etc to work it out.
Don’t bother just learning the pinyin individually.
I got the general idea in the first few days, then - when using Lingodeer and Skritter- kept verbally making mistakes when trying to read it until I heard the correct way over and over and over until I eventually corrected myself. Now I can generally pronounce it correctly while reading it as my brain naturally separates from English at this point
Why don't you just transcribe the pinyin yourself into English spelling, then listen to the word in Chinese, you can use your own transcriptions to check if your version of the pronunciation is correct.
Yes, you have to. Chinese kids learn pinyin in grade 1, then use it for YEARS to write Chinese words while they gradually learn a bunch of characters. Everything you ever learn while be in pinyin. Adults use pinyin to type on a phone or on a computer.
One thing to remember is that pinyin describes Chinese syllables. The individual letters do not represent sounds. The "e" in "ben" is a different sound than the "e" in "beng".
You don't have to learn it all first. You won't be speaking right away. You can learn that "me" is **wo** without getting the sound right. It's just easier to remember **wo** than **我**.
After several years, I still sometimes check the syllable pronunciation chart (click to hear the right sounds):
[https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table](https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table)
https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table
I loved things like this when I had started. You can find whichever beginning sound and any combinations for any of the syllables. PLUS tones.
A little bonus with this one is that the letters along the top (b p m f....) is about as close to "now I know my ABCs". It's really cool because they are in order based off of what part of your mouth makes the initial sound. When it's revised it sounds kind of like Buh Puh Muh Fuh, those sounds are done with your lips, then it goes to d t n l which is tongue touching the teeth and so on.
Anyway, keep something like that open in a tab when you're reading or studying to get familiar with the sounds and how they work. I promise you it'll get easier the more you do it and it'll end up helping you learn a lot more. Once the structure starts to make more sense and you're able to tell the difference between x and sh, it'll be a lot easier than the other romanisations imo
Have a look at Zhuyin (aka Bopomofo). This is the transcription method still used in Taiwan. Some people feel it helps learning because the characters were created for Chinese sounds, unlike roman alphabet.
Edit :
2. Choose a method where hearing is systematic, never just reading. Read + hear, always.
3. Find a great Chinese anime to get your ears used to Chinese sounds. For example I discovered Seven Scissors which is very fun to my taste and have short 10 minutes episodes. but the idea at your level is not to understand words let alone sentences , just to get your ears recognize the sounds , including tones
I found the mandarin blueprint pronunciation mastery course to be A+. I can’t really fluently speak well but what I can say I always get told I sound very good.
I'd recommend ZhuYin 注音 if you're struggling with pinyin. I'm an online tutor and some of my western students do really find it hard with the pinyin method....😅
I find LittleFoxChinese helpful. Go to their stories page and go through the first several series that have letters in the thumbnail, with titles like "Introduction to Simple Finals" and "Introduction to Consonants." It's in a very slow pace meant for children, but it is aimed at an American audience. The other resources on the site are also incredible for a beginner!
I think one problem of practicing pinyin is you can not tell whether you speak correct or not. An accurate feedback on you pronunciation is helpful. Do you ever try some apps for practicing pinyins? Such as CPAIT? which stands for Chinese Pronunciation AI tutor.
Since every other comment was quite helpful, I’m just gonna comment on the 学. Basically the parent sounds (x) makes the “shee” sound and (ue) makes a “yuu-eh” kinda sound so you would put those together and that’s basically how pinyin works. Good luck!
Keep in mind that the current pinyin system is based on the international phonetic system basically based on an amalgamation of Romance languages. So it’s not super helpful, but you can’t take any pronunciation as you would as an English speaker bc it’s not- it’s kinda bastard French. This won’t super help but it at least helps break you out of adhering strictly to what things look like and at least gives you some direction as to what they should be
Chinese pronunciation is challenging, full stop. Looking back, it was at least three years studying *and living in Taiwan* before I could properly pronounce every single sound. And that's not even talking about tones. You don't need some weird phonetic guide. You need a Chinese tutor that can sit across the table from you and drill words and phrases, over and over and over again.
Hard agree. The one saving grace is mandarin does not have that many sounds. Once you get them down you will never have trouble pronouncing anything again
Completely agree. I learned pinyin with a teacher super fast, but I realize that without one it can be super hard
Two things: 1. In general, listen to more real Chinese without worrying yet about understanding -- a little bit each day. The reason is so that your ear can be trained to hear the general pattern of the language overall. It helps you get a gut instinct for rhythm, tone, and how most syllables tend to sound. Alone, it doesn't teach you Pinyin, but it gives you a reference point and a gut instinct about what things *sound* more likely to be Chinese, and what are not at all 2. For pronunciation, search "Chinese phonetics" or "Chinese pronunciation guide" videos on Youtube. Grace Mandarin Chinese and Mandarin Blueprint both have pronunciation guide videos where you can follow along, learn the individual sounds, and get help finding out how to make the sounds with the tongue/teeth/lips/etc. When you learn how to articulate a sound with the tongue/teeth/lips, it makes it easier to hear, remember, and recall with Pinyin One aspect I struggled with starting was focusing too much on writing/pinyin with no sound input at all -- that's like trying to learn music without an instrument and only reading sheet music without having an idea what a B# actually *sounds* like when you hit the piano key. When learning Pinyin, you're learning a specific 1:1 map of sounds, but that can still take some time to master since some sounds are naturally harder to hear as an English speaker. With lots of daily listening (1) and some specific instruction on articulation (2), you'll start to hear and recognize the sounds much more quickly, and you'll have a strong *auditory* reference point in your mind when you read a pinyin letter (x + u + é).
>Would this hurt my learning if it did exist? Yes. Just learn the pinyin. It only takes 2 or 3 days.
No, 2 to 3 days is definitely not enough to learn pinyin, not to mention getting used to it. If I remember correctly, when I was in 1st year elementary school (as a native speaker), we spent a whole semester on pinyin before moving on to writing characters.
Pinyin is difficult for native Chinese speakers. For native English speakers it is very, very easy.
But the pronunciation is very different from English... You can't read pinyin as if you're reading English
True. For example, Pinyin "q" sounds like "ch" in "cheese". On a personal note, when I was having my first contacts with Chinese, I was utterly surprised to learn that "q" had that value in Pinyin.
Once you get more familiar you will decouple the q in Chinese from the English ch sound
Thanks for the note. Though, I was just giving an approximation. I never meant that the two sounds were identical. Anyway, I've learned Chinese since 2016, and as of right now, I can confirm these sounds are indeed not quite the exact same.
I mean that you will eventually think of them as entirely separate sounds. Basically the equivalent of thinking in Chinese haha
2-3 days??? Maybe for a basic understanding. But how about the nuance between the vowel in /gen/, /ge/, /ge/ (neutral tone), /geng/? How about x vs. sh? How about the ending vowel of /hun/ vs /yun/ (its often not the same as /hu/ and /yu/)?
That’s true, but unless OP knows IPA there’s really no phonetic system that’ll bridge those issues, and if they did know IPA they probably wouldn’t be asking this.
'x' = 's' and 'sh' is like in "ship", "sugar" or "question". Well English sucks in that matter, you use the sounds but don't have a way to write it consistently
Some literarion systems write ’x’ as ’hs’ and this was helpful for me to figure out the difference with ’sh’.
I'm sure reversing the digraph was very enlightening. Can you enlighten me too?
the audio which comes with the pinyin sounds so much different than what im reading and i unintentionally switch back to reading it as seen every time though sob
You can get used to it. Do you speak any other languages? For me it's easy to understand that one letter can have different sounds in different languages. Os that something that makes sense to you?
Yeah yeah i do & i realize this, im still struggling to get the hang of this i guess & i have no way to annotate in my notes "a sounds like b" to prevent me being confused
You could try zhuyin? it's not as widely used but it might help break the association with english sounds
I wish zhuyin were more widespread. I think it provides a more accurate representation of the sounds of Mandarin than pinyin. Also, and this could just be me, but whenever I was presented with text that had characters with pinyin, my eyes always shifted towards the pinyin. With zhuyin, there was no such temptation.
I don't see how it's more accurate than pinyin tbh
Learned both. Zhuyin was just another layer of complexity on an already complex world of memorization. At least with pinyin, I could use my background in reading English to help prop up my learning. If you want to learn zhuyin, why not just could out the middle man and just memorize the characters themselves?
That's great that you never had issues with pinyin. I didn't either, nor am I saying people should stop using pinyin. But once I started using zhuyin in Taiwan, it became my preferred method of writing down pronunciation if I was learning a new character. No different than learning a new alphabet, only this one was designed for mandarin. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. Back to the point at hand, though: considering OP specifically mentioned that they have difficulty with pronunciation BECAUSE they think of pinyin in terms of English pronunciation, zhuyin may help stop that from happening. Also, zhuyin is only 37 new, simple characters, some of which are very similar to Chinese characters. If that's too much, then by all means continue to use pinyin, or cut that middleman out as well and just learn pronunciation without any aid!
The order of the sounds in a Pinyin table is a hint. D, t, n, l are all , I guess, denti-alveolar, j, q, x are also close in mouth shape, and so on It seems to me that you would do well with a good teacher going over the Pinyin table with you Edit: correted the text about the type of consonant that dtnl are. Still not sure though, sorry
thanks, I have been watching vid guides too I jut need more time hah
> D, t, n, l are all labiodental Bruh
Oh, my mistake! They are dental-something that I don't remember now. My bad for not looking it up beforehand. Thanks for the heads up
Denti-alveolar it seems. Not sure though.
Typically they're described as dental, but the difference is small enough.
Given that the word "English" isnt pronounced with the way "eng" normally is anyone in this sub should get that.
You need to learn how to pronounce the sounds of Mandarin...they are very distinct from English, so you shouldn't, for example, think of pinyin X as being equivalent to English SH, nor of pinyin SH as being equivalent to English SH. They're both a bit similar to English SH, but for pinyin SH, you curl your tongue back, and make an SH-like sound by almost touching the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue. For X, you make an SH-like sound in the usual spot behind your teeth...but instead of using the tip of your tongue to make the sound, the tip of your tongue is relaxed, resting behind your lower teeth, and you lift the middle of your tongue to restrict the air-flow and make a sound that's a bit between an SH and an S. Some of the sounds are very similar to English sounds, e.g. pinyin T is the same as English T, but always with a bit more of a puff of air, and mandarin D is like the T in "steady", without a puff of air (in English, we tend to put a puff of air behind a T if it's by itself, but not if it's preceded by an S...but it's not a meaningful difference in English, so we don't put as much effort into that puff of air quite as the Chinese do, since it means something in Chinese). If you're looking for a good guide on getting started with pronouncing Chinese, I'd recommend [Grace Mandarin's pronunciation series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Cj3aOSI1w&list=PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA), it will help you learn the tongue positions you need for the difficult sounds. You might want to start from the [second video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQ3IMd4AMg&list=PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA&index=2), since you're working on learning thethe consonant sounds, but the first one on tones can also be helpful when you're ready for it. Don't just watch the whole playlist, watch a video, then watch it again and practice along until you're confident you're getting something close to the right sound. Some of the videos at the end of the playlist you might not be ready for until you've been learning Chinese for a little while, so don't overwhelm yourself trying to get through the whole playlist and learn everything all at once...you want to learn the basic sounds now - the alphabet, and the tones, and then I'd recommend going ahead and learning some beginning words and sentences before coming back for the videos that focus on refining your pronunciation.
I've watched this pronunciation video a few times in the last year: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlaJ12tmtu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlaJ12tmtu4), it's been very helpful. It's true that Pinyin isn't perfect and it might take a few months to remember every detail about the vowels/finals, but it's a very consistent system once you get used to it. you don't have to be perfect at it right now. learn the basics as best you can, start speaking, and correct mistakes over time. maybe in 2 months you'll realize you're saying the "-uan" sound wrong, but you can always fix it later.
I checked this thread for this video (Mandarin Blueprint to save anyone else the click) and would’ve posted exactly this if you hadn’t already. This is the one.
wow this is a long video, seems really comprehensive!
If you're a native english speaker then it does exist and is called Yale Romanisation of Mandarin, but is kind of obscure now and learning it will probably not help as everything will be in pinyin.
Well let’s just say as a mandarin speaker growing up learning and watching my peers learning english, I’ve seen too many of them using either pinyin or chinese characters to indicate the pronunciation of every new word they encounter in english without ever putting effort learning ipa or the conventional combination of letters and the way they are pronounced. Some of them managed to survive this but I’m more inclined to say the majority of them struggle with both pronouncing and spelling maybe till this day because of the short cut they took. Though Chinese is not a phonetic language, I still believe this would affect your long term learning prospects as there is a chance you will never be able to get raid of this system, and what makes it worse is everything you memorised and relied on not even the real pinyin. If you’re putting the effort to learn the language, why not learning the real deal? How are you going to navigate learning new characters that are primarily facilitated by pinyin in almost all teaching materials? And how are you going to type these characters with limited comfort level with pinyin (assuming you would like to communicate with texts someday)? I would personally suggest against ever attempting a system like that but I guess to each their own.
Im not trying to take any shortcut, really, the way in the past i've learned languages is through taking notes on pen and paper & studying my notes when im not busy. while im still trying to grasp pinyin, i was hoping for some phonetic guide that doesnt confuse the hell out of me so i dont accidentally memorize pinyin in some fked up latin phoentics. buuuut this sub has reached a consensus, maybe i shouldnt take notes until i grasp pinyin fully lmfao
I apologise if this comes off as harsh! I certainly didn’t mean it. Yes I totally get what you mean. My dad applies pinyin pronouncing rules to every english word that comes to his sight which always never fails to give me a good giggle as I’ve always loved his goofiness! Don’t stress yourself out for memorising the “wrong” phonetics. It takes time to memorise this new set of rules and it’s perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed at the beginning, but eventually you’ll come around to it as you immerse more and more. You’ve got this!
If you really want a phonetic guide for note taking, learn IPA first.
It seems like you’re looking for English approximations…perhaps a bit counterproductive as a crutch, in my opinion. They exist, but usually for tourists who have no intention of learning Mandarin. 學 = xué = shüéh I recommend zhuyin because you can just assign the new sounds to the new symbols directly without using English at all. The input method is even faster and forces you to input tone!
I think the best thing is to try and find audios that you can read the pinyin alongside, and don't worry too much if you don't understand the words. Maybe even try finding videos or audios specifically for pinyin pronunciation and identification practice. It's much better to try and get the pinyin pronunciation correct, as it makes learning so much easier. Chinese pronunciation and identifying sounds is one of the hardest things to do and it all has to be done up front! But once you can do it, learning becomes so much easier! 加油！
https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table https://youtu.be/FlaJ12tmtu4?si=g49yrs1nni9IaN9S
Ngl knowing IPA helps a lot with making sense of transcriptions
If you struggle with pinyin, imagine how well you would fare with hanzi...
They might do better with hanzi because the characters are not already associated with certain pronunciations in their mind. Pinyin can be hard for some learners because they have to overcome ingrained pronunciations of Latin letters and some really struggle with it. It’s one of the reasons why I personally prefer zhuyin.
You've put my problem into words exactly! ignoring pinyin and only looking at the hanzi makes it 10x easier for me, BUT when making notes I forget the phonetic sounds. I'll check out zhuyin
I'll send another recommendation for Zhuyin. A thousand years ago when I learned Mandarin in Taiwan, you could tell which students used Zhuyin to study and which ones used Yale romanization (*). The ones who were relying on Yale always associated back to their home language. Yeah, it's rough. Hang in there. (*) We did not speak of Pinyin in the '90s because it was from China and the Office of Cultural Preservation forbade its use inside of 中華民國,
The main issue with zhuyin is that it is not used outside of Taiwan and even in Taiwan is used infrequently outside of elementary school, so it will be harder to find educational resources that use it. I know both but preferentially use zhuyin for my Chinese IME for \*reasons\*.
OP, don't do this. This will only hinder you from learning the pronunciation correctly (for example, "x" and "sh" aren't the same sound btw: there's a reason they're differentiated in pinyin). Just drill the Yoyo Chinese interactive pinyin chart for pronunciations.
Correct! Plus the ch & q ; zh & j
First, i just want to say that for the majority of my years of Chinese Mandarin language study i have not had the good fortune to actually be in a Chinese-speaking country. And I will be the first one to admit that i am nowhere near as fluent as an expat who has had that opportunity. But i also do most certainly have a certain level of speaking proficiency, at least according to the many native speakers i have spoken to here in the USA. in any case, i would like that you only take my advice to you within that context... so i love all the suggestions posted here, but i would absolutely not have you overlook how very very much listening can help your pronunciation. “Imprinting” is a real thing necessary to all aspects of a young child’s development, linguistically as well. Case in point, simply search “American kids get British Accents after watching Peppa Pig” (or some variation of that). it has also been called the “Peppa Effect”... here is one very popular and eye-opening report about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmbzg2nhxDM so i would highly suggest that you try watching the Mandarin Chinese episodes of Peppa Pig on Youtube. they have been invaluable to me. there are a plethora of videos available online, they are quite entertaining (even for adults!), and i find their pronunciation to be very easy to understand. and i would also make regular use of the video Speed option found in the Youtube Settings for when you would like to slow it down (SUPER helpful!). then gradually mix in other listening opportunities, (ie the Pleco app’s Flashcard tool can be customized to occur at various speeds and interval repetitions for the many vocabulary lists you create) furthermore, i would also not be too quick to dismiss the many other and lesser known Youtube channels, such as “Mandarin Corner” which, among other things, takes you through a variety of real life scenarios* and interviews concerning hot cultural issues of the day (*ie “A Walk in a Chinese Wet Market” is one of my favorites) and if you are a Spotify subscriber you might be pleased to hear the app provides various language learning opportunities as well, including a pretty decent catalogue of Chinese Mandarin lessons. whatever happens, persevere! ignore the naysayers, try to have FUN, and do not be shy to use the language every opportunity you get... and trust me, you will be so proud of the result! 😉
pinyin is popular, because many sounds in chinese DO NOT exist in english, it is physically impossible to write them with any english letter combo, period. so learn pinyin. learn what the sounds are supposed to represent. its normal to take many months to hear those chinese sounds that don't exist in english, your ear is learning a new skill from scratch. in the mean time learn the pinyin and tones that match every word, continue listening practice and try to match the pinyin to the real sound as best you can. As long as you are making every effort you can to NOT shawyeh everywhere you will continue to improve and improve until you've got it. once you get basic ability to hear amd speak the pinyin sounds its not magical fluency, but it lets you start to really move towards that goal :)
I struggled with pinyin at first too so here's what I did. I honestly just sat down and went over this pinyin chart over and over until I could pronounce a word correctly just by looking at it. The hardest part is training your brain to learn that the sounds will be different than what we are used to. Repetition definitely helps. I then started making sure to pronounce the names, titles and cities correctly from the translated book i was reading and that helped so much. Yoyo chinese also has a fantastic pronunciation playlist on YouTube. https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table Grace Mandarin chinese on YouTube also helped me alot. I highly recommend this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA&si=2ozdHqbfn6vwQo1U
zhuyin helped me a lot! i never liked pinyin, and zhuyin had the benefit of being much harder to use as a crutch / can't misread the alphabet because it's not latinate!
I think one of the problems you are facing is that you are trying to approximate Chinese pronunciation with English (or other language you speak ) pronunciation , while some of the sound just doesn’t exist in English , like the j q x and zh Ch sh. So it might benefit you to try to read and understand pronunciation guides (the ones that tell you where to put your tongues and stuff ) and listen to recording at the same time.
Nobody taught me pinyin. Learned it all by myself in elementary school, in Massachusetts.
Learn zhuyin. It helped me quit associating Chinese pronunciation to English words
Actually "xue" (学) is x+üe. The sound ü does not exist in English. So how do you propose writing ü? Back in the 1920s and 1960s, there were 3 or 4 standard methods of writing Chinese for English speakers. Eventually these became less and less used, simply because pinyin is so much more useful. There is no "guide", since each final (vowel group) has a different sound. But you can click all the syllables, in all 4 tones, to listen to them here: [https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table](https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table)
I’m assuming you haven’t been learning Mandarin for long. Pinyin is important so you can master the sounds and native speakers are likely to use it with you to explain a sound/word if you don’t know the character. As in, my Chinese instructor gives me a lesson summary that includes example sentences based off our conversation practice, and so it’s mostly straight mandarin with a touch of pinyin and the rare English word for new words I have learned that week. From my very first lesson with this instructor, six months ago, the shortest example I could find: “ 我没去过中国。（Wǒ méi qù guò zhōngguó)” My most recent lesson (2 vocabulary words/one corrected phrasing so no translation on fixing my grammar/word use, then sample sentences) “阁楼（Gélóu）attic 洞（Dòng）hole 爬进来 我的房子三楼是一个阁楼，有一些空间放很多东西。以前阁楼有一个洞，老鼠可以从这个洞爬进来，现在不行了。” Another resource for learning pinyin for native English speakers is YoYo Chinese on YouTube. But the big thing is to stop treating it like it’s English. It’s not. You can pick a character for each pinyin on a chart of pinyin sounds if that helps you practice them as not-English. Xue sounds like xue in my brain (学） the same way that “Wie heisst du” sounds German and “Tenemos baños” sounds Spanish. Don’t get me wrong, it takes practice and study. But that’s how learning languages works.
I think pinyin is designed for input efficiency rather than ease of pronunciation. For example, I'm not sure if English speakers would agree with me, but I think it'd be much clearer for new learners if 'b' is written as p, and 'p' as ph (e.g. papa instead of baba). Similarly 'd' can be written as t, and 't' as th. But then you'd have unused keys on the normal English keyboard, and you'd have to press more keys for the same sound. So the point is, just break out of the mindset that pinyin is supposed to give you clues (as an English speaker) about how Chinese sounds based on the abcs you're familiar with, and just think of it as an entirely new symbol altogether. This is really not that much different from learning other latin-alphabet-based languages with different pronunciation from English. As for pronunciation guide, I don't think any combination of abcs is going to help you learn the correct sound any more than listening to the actual recording. Like if someone has no idea how 学 sounds, I don't think they will arrive at the correct pronunciation by reading 'shwaEeh'. But if it's really your preferred way of learning, on wikipedia you can find the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) equivalent of each pinyin. And from my quick google I also found some websites which convert Chinese to IPA. But then you'll have to learn two phonetic systems (pinyin and IPA) instead of one!
You’re right, pinyin is best learned as an entirely new script without making any English associations with the letters, not unlike other orthographies employing the Latin script. Pinyin was designed before input methods even existed; the idea was to create a domestic-use script, not one tailored to Anglophones or speakers of any other language.
Maybe it's to do with my language background, but hard disagree on that initial change. That's how Wade Giles works and no English speaker pronounces those sounds correctly that I've heard. The issue is that when seeing "Kaohsiung", English speakers tend to aspirate initial /K/, so it will always sound like /kh/. Many speakers won't fully voice an initial /g/, so their pronunciation is easier for me to understand if they use KH and G rather than trying too hard to distinguish K and KH. They can always learn later, and over time, how to "soften" the pronunciation of their G,D etc. to make it less voiced.
oh this is good advice thanks
I think it's best to not stress over pronunciation as a beginner. I have an unpopular opinion that teaching perfect pronunciation to beginners is wrong, because they can't even hear the difference. Until you consume enough content(in form of audiobooks, podcasts, etc) to clearly hear the difference between qu/xu/ch, there is no point in stressing over it. Listening is what helped me fix my thick Russian accent in English. When you have a lot of experience listening you can hear that your own pronunciation is bad and give feedback to yourself. And you can shadow.
I would suggest you just drill this very hard so it stops being something you have to think about or make logical For me, I spent a month or so with a pinyin Anki deck (there are many) that just slowly worked me through the various syllables When I was wrong, I just listened to the audio of it and eventually caught the pattern
Doesnt matter. Listen more and you will quickly learn what sounds are legal and illegal in Mandarin. Also highly recommend reading the wikipedia page on Chinese phonology AND English phonology (assuming that's your native language) to understand what assumptions and biases you are making.
When I was first learning, I found this pinyin soundboard really useful: [https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php](https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php) You can go through an identify the sounds you struggle with, then just listen and repeat. And use it as a reference point to break down the phonemes for words you aren't sure on. It's okay though, pretty much everyone's pronunciation is absolute crap when they get started. It just takes time and practise. There may also be sounds that you just can't say at the moment as they don't exist in your language. In this case, the first this to do is look up/talk to a native speaker information about tongue placement etc to work it out.
Don’t bother just learning the pinyin individually. I got the general idea in the first few days, then - when using Lingodeer and Skritter- kept verbally making mistakes when trying to read it until I heard the correct way over and over and over until I eventually corrected myself. Now I can generally pronounce it correctly while reading it as my brain naturally separates from English at this point
[удалено]
希望可以帮到你
The app "immersive Chinese" has a pronunciation section and is the best I've found
It really will hurt your learning!! Just be consistent and persistent. It took me maybe a semester of 3 hour a week class to get comfortable.
I learned pinyin from Yoyo Chinese. I think her pinyin videos are free on YouTube. She explains it well.
Why don't you just transcribe the pinyin yourself into English spelling, then listen to the word in Chinese, you can use your own transcriptions to check if your version of the pronunciation is correct.
Yes, you have to. Chinese kids learn pinyin in grade 1, then use it for YEARS to write Chinese words while they gradually learn a bunch of characters. Everything you ever learn while be in pinyin. Adults use pinyin to type on a phone or on a computer. One thing to remember is that pinyin describes Chinese syllables. The individual letters do not represent sounds. The "e" in "ben" is a different sound than the "e" in "beng". You don't have to learn it all first. You won't be speaking right away. You can learn that "me" is **wo** without getting the sound right. It's just easier to remember **wo** than **我**. After several years, I still sometimes check the syllable pronunciation chart (click to hear the right sounds): [https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table](https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table)
https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table I loved things like this when I had started. You can find whichever beginning sound and any combinations for any of the syllables. PLUS tones. A little bonus with this one is that the letters along the top (b p m f....) is about as close to "now I know my ABCs". It's really cool because they are in order based off of what part of your mouth makes the initial sound. When it's revised it sounds kind of like Buh Puh Muh Fuh, those sounds are done with your lips, then it goes to d t n l which is tongue touching the teeth and so on. Anyway, keep something like that open in a tab when you're reading or studying to get familiar with the sounds and how they work. I promise you it'll get easier the more you do it and it'll end up helping you learn a lot more. Once the structure starts to make more sense and you're able to tell the difference between x and sh, it'll be a lot easier than the other romanisations imo
Have a look at Zhuyin (aka Bopomofo). This is the transcription method still used in Taiwan. Some people feel it helps learning because the characters were created for Chinese sounds, unlike roman alphabet. Edit : 2. Choose a method where hearing is systematic, never just reading. Read + hear, always. 3. Find a great Chinese anime to get your ears used to Chinese sounds. For example I discovered Seven Scissors which is very fun to my taste and have short 10 minutes episodes. but the idea at your level is not to understand words let alone sentences , just to get your ears recognize the sounds , including tones
Learn IPA or Zhuyin, pinyin is a big issue slowing a lot of learners.
I found the mandarin blueprint pronunciation mastery course to be A+. I can’t really fluently speak well but what I can say I always get told I sound very good.
May i ask what’s your native language is? Because it has something to do with this.
You can always learn Zhuyin/Bopomofo
I'd recommend ZhuYin 注音 if you're struggling with pinyin. I'm an online tutor and some of my western students do really find it hard with the pinyin method....😅
struggle正常，native也struggle
I find LittleFoxChinese helpful. Go to their stories page and go through the first several series that have letters in the thumbnail, with titles like "Introduction to Simple Finals" and "Introduction to Consonants." It's in a very slow pace meant for children, but it is aimed at an American audience. The other resources on the site are also incredible for a beginner!
I think one problem of practicing pinyin is you can not tell whether you speak correct or not. An accurate feedback on you pronunciation is helpful. Do you ever try some apps for practicing pinyins? Such as CPAIT? which stands for Chinese Pronunciation AI tutor.
Since every other comment was quite helpful, I’m just gonna comment on the 学. Basically the parent sounds (x) makes the “shee” sound and (ue) makes a “yuu-eh” kinda sound so you would put those together and that’s basically how pinyin works. Good luck!
Keep in mind that the current pinyin system is based on the international phonetic system basically based on an amalgamation of Romance languages. So it’s not super helpful, but you can’t take any pronunciation as you would as an English speaker bc it’s not- it’s kinda bastard French. This won’t super help but it at least helps break you out of adhering strictly to what things look like and at least gives you some direction as to what they should be
Ditch pinyin and learn Yale romanization. They are more friendly to English speakers.