The Chinese Alphabet (Pinyin Letters)

Strictly speaking, Chinese has no alphabet: characters stand for whole syllables and meanings, not individual sounds. What learners call "the Chinese alphabet" is pinyin — the official romanization that spells every Mandarin syllable with the 26 Latin letters, plus tone marks. This page shows what each letter *actually* sounds like in pinyin, because roughly a third of them are false friends.

The dangerous ones are famous: c is "ts", q is a "ch" with spread lips, x is a soft "sh", zh/ch/sh curl the tongue back, and after z/c/s the letter i stops being "ee" and becomes a buzz. Tap through the letters, listen to a real word for each, and when you want to know whether you can *say* them — not just hear them — take the free pronunciation test.