Watch this if you're using Pinyin to learn Chinese.

Hello, everyone! I'm Grace. If you're learning Chinese with Pinyin, there are a few things you need to know. Pinyin is a great tool for learning Chinese pronunciation. However, the actual pronunciation isn't always what you might expect from the spelling. But don't worry, in this video, I will walk you through the hidden rules of Pinyin so you can avoid some common pronunciation mistakes. And if you'd like to learn more effectively, I've created a PDF that covers all the key concepts from today's video, plus some extra examples. You can access it by joining my YouTube or Patreon membership. The first hidden rule is there is actually an unwritten ㄨ in these syllables. So instead of pronouncing them as their actual pronunciation is there is a ㄨ in between. The second important rule is that when you see this letter right after it's actually an ㄩ sound instead of an ㄨ sound. So these are actually pronounced as In other words, your tongue should stay towards the front of your mouth, not the back. There is no ㄓ ㄔ ㄕ sound in Chinese. So keep in mind that whenever you see this letter right after ㄐ ㄑ or ㄒ it's always pronounced as Next, let's talk about these pinyin spellings. You will only see them at the beginning of a syllable. In pinyin, they are used to indicate syllables that start with So it's easier to see where they begin. For example, If we simply spell its sound, it's like this. But in this way, people might be a bit confused over whether it's just one syllable or actually two syllables. So we add the letter Y to mark the beginning of the syllable, like this. Here is another example. If we simply spell its sound, it's like this. It also looks kind of like it's just one syllable. So we add the letter W to show that there are actually two separate syllables. For those of you who want to know when and how these letters are used, you can screenshot this and save it for the future. So basically, these letters represent the when they appear at the beginning of a syllable. We use them to make the syllable boundary clear. Now that you know this, when you pronounce this spelling, remember it's just one sound. It's not This is wrong. It's just one sound. So it's Not It's Remember, just one sound. Alright, if you have been enjoying my teaching videos so far, I'd like to take a quick moment to share some learning resources that might be helpful for you. If you'd like to start speaking Chinese without spending hours studying grammar and vocabulary, my beginner Chinese course may be a great fit for you. In the course, you will practice building sentences and speaking Chinese along with my videos. You will also learn important concepts about how Chinese really works, helping you sound more natural and confident when you speak. To access my ongoing beginner Chinese course, you can join my YouTube membership, Happy Learners, or join my Patreon at the second tier or above. If you're already an intermediate or advanced learner and would like to improve your real-life Chinese, I also have a weekly podcast on my Patreon. By joining, you will get access to over 70 mini podcast episodes and a new episode is added every week to help you learn words and expressions that native speakers actually use in real life. I hope to see you there! Now let's move on to the next hidden rule. When you see this letter, how would you pronounce it? Right? But when you see this letter right after these consonants, it's not pronounced as ee here. To make it easier for you to remember, you can consider them as silent. So to pronounce these syllables, all you have to do is prolong the consonant. So don't pronounce the letter i as ee here. So there's no g, ch, sh, j, z, q, c sound. It's not correct. We pronounce these syllables as So you can consider these i as silent here. All you have to do is prolong the consonant. Next, when you see these combinations in pinyin, remember they're actually the shortened forms of So these two are not pronounced as but For example, this is not pronounced as It's There's an o in between. Not And this is not pronounced as It's There's an e in between. The sixth hidden rule is when the letter a appears in these two combinations, it's not pronounced as Instead, it's So they're not pronounced as This is how you should pronounce them. So this is not pronounced as It's And do you remember this is actually an ü sound, right? So guess how you should pronounce this syllable. It's It's not You should pronounce it as To make things easier, you can use this list whenever you come across these pinyin combinations and want to know how they're actually pronounced. The last one I want to talk about is this letter. It needs a bit more of your attention because it's pronounced differently in different contexts. For example, in it's pronounced as But in it's pronounced as How do you usually pronounce this? It's Many learners would say But it's actually Here are the international phonetic alphabet symbols that show how this letter is pronounced in different pinyin spellings. I know this can be a bit hard to understand, but don't worry, I have a video where I talk about how to pronounce each of them. You can find the link in the description below. These are all the important rules about pinyin that you should pay attention to if you want to have a better pronunciation. Today we didn't mention tongues, but they also play a very important role in naturally spoken Chinese. If you want to build a solid foundation of your Chinese tones and learn how to pronounce them naturally like a native speaker, check out my new course, Grace's Master Guide to Mandarin Tongues and Intonation. You can find more details on the course page. The link is in the description below. Also, if you'd like to visualize your tones, see whether you're pronouncing them correctly, and learn 300 common Chinese phrases, check out my mini-course on EMERS. You will also find the link in the description below. Alright, I hope you enjoyed today's video. I know sometimes pinyin spelling can be a little bit tricky, but as long as you're aware of these hidden rules, you will be able to avoid some common pronunciation mistakes. And also don't forget that you can get the PDF for this lesson where I've organized all the important concepts from today's video into an easy-to-review guide, along with some extra examples. You can access it by joining my YouTube or Patreon membership. Finally, if you want to learn some daily Mandarin expressions, check out my Instagram, gracemandarin. 那我們下次見囉! Bye bye!