Pinyin

Nathan and I are very excited to start learning Chinese.  I won't lie, though.  We are also intimidated and a bit nervous.  It's like the hardest language in the world, right?  Nathan doesn't start language training at FSI until July but we are trying to get a head start taking a peek at Pinyin.  Pinyin is the official system of writing out the Chinese script into Latin (English, ABCs) script. It's useful for knowing how to pronounce Chinese, since it's not a phonetic language.  Spanish and Korean are soooo easy in this respect.  I taught Tron how to read and write in Korean in one night, no joke.

We found this little gem on Youtube and had a date night yesterday reciting it along with the video.  I had to keep reminding myself that I will not be speaking Chinese in a little kid's shouting voice...

 

The fact that it takes 6 minutes to learn all the sounds in Chinese Pinyin (in song, anyway) should tell you something about this language.  For those of you who are familiar with Pinyin, any tips would be greatly appreciated!!