Part II: MANDARIN INITIAL CONSONANTS

One problem with romanization systems like *pinyin* is that they can mislead learners into thinking that the Chinese sound represented by the roman letters is exactly the same as the English sound. Also, some of the letters used will seem obvious to you because they will sound similar to English. But some of the vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and consonants (all the rest of the letters) will not be obvious. For example, *i* actually has three different sounds--how you pronounce it just depends on what it comes after. You will also come across some abbreviation rules that may seem more trouble than they are worth at first. The reason for these seeming inconveniences is that *pinyin* was actually created for Chinese speakers and what would be easier for them. It is worth it to learn *pinyin* because it is widely taught and used in China, especially in elementary schools. You are not only learning *pinyin* as a crutch for the first few weeks of the course, but also as one of the ways Chinese is written, and as a way to phonetically spell out any new Chinese word you learn throughout your life.
Because the sound the roman/English letters stand for in *pinyin* may not be the same as the sound you usually give it, try to learn how native speakers pronounce each sound, rather than using your usual English pronunciation. Use the linked recordings as your main guide.
The Mandarin syllable is relatively simple. The most complex syllable consists of an initial consonant, a medial vowel, a main vowel, and an ending consonant. The simplest syllable consists of just a vowel. Study the following initial consonants:

PINYIN SIMILAR ENGLISH SOUND** LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION
b Bat (unvoiced) Labial unaspirated stop
p Pat (stronger aspiration) Labial aspirated stop
m Mat Labial nasal
f Fan Labial fricative
d Dad (unvoiced) Alveolar unaspirated stop
t Tip (stronger aspiration) Alveolar aspirated stop
n Nice Alveolar nasal
l Light (tongue against front teeth) Alveolar liquid
g Ghost (unvoiced) Velar unaspirated stop
k Kite (stronger aspiration) Velar aspirated stop
h Hat (but rougher--like German *nach*) Velar fricative
z aDDS/dozen without the *o* (unvoiced) Dental unaspirated affricate
c leTS (but stronger aspiration) Dental aspirated affricate
s Soon (tongue against front teeth) Dental fricative
j Jeep (unvoiced; followed by *yi*) Palatal unaspirated affricate
q CHeap (always followed by *yi* sound) Palatal aspirated affricate
x between See and SHe (followed by *yi*) Palatal fricative
zh John (tongue curled back) Retroflex unaspir. affricate
ch CHat (tongue curled back) Retroflex aspirated affricate
sh SHoe (tongue curled back) Retroflex fricative
r cRew (tongue curled back) Retroflex liquid
w Walk liquid
y Yellow Palatal liquid
**The capitalized letter(s) are the similar English sound.

Examples--Listen and record yourself until you feel comfortable with the consonant pronunciation.
ben ming wang ken dang neng can he zen peng teng gu shang fou song san zai gan tu pu dong bang nan hei kang wan chang mang leng yang ying ba gou shan rang pai kai ren dan men tou dao she tiao qin pan fan lan gen han ca wo cai zhang

Dental, Palatal and Retroflex
zi ji zhi si xi shi qi ci chi ri er qiang chang cang zhang jiang zang ran qiang chong jing reng jiang zhong zong xiong song chen zheng rong sang shang xiang su shu xu qin cheng jian xin qiong xing xie jin ren