How to Learn Chinese Step by Step I Pinyin （拼音篇） Nowadays, it is easier for people to learn other languages because there are plenty of resources online. As long as you are persevere, one by one, you will succeed. From my experiences of learning English, French and German, I sum up the process of acquiring alphabetical languages. First is phonetics. Know its own alphabet , phonetic symbols and pronunciation rules. Second is to memorize words. Then learn basic sentences for daily communication and its grammar. Finally, you need to practice it everyday. Of course, those steps are not totally separated. How do people learn Chinese then? In my opinion it is similiar to the process above, maybe just two more steps. First, phonetics. It is called Pinyin. 声母表 ( consonants ) b p m f d t n l g k h j q x zh ch sh r z c s y w 韵母表 ( vowels & nasals ) a o e i u ü ai ei ui ao ou iu ie üe er an en in un ün ang eng ing ong 声母_initials 韵母_finals There are many video materials online, so you can imitate them and learn Pinyin by yourself. But it would be better if you could find someone correct you. Once you know their pronunciations, you should practice how to put two or more phonemes together to read out the syllable. However, there are some expections. For the followings you don't need to combine sounds into syllables. You should pronounce them directly, an initial and a final as one. 整体认读音节 zhi chi shi ri zi ci si yi wu yu ye yue yuan yin yun ying Hard parts for foreigners, I guess, are Tones. The pinyin system also uses diacritics to mark the four tones of Mandarin. 1.The first tone (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel; 2.The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ); 3.The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is marked by a caron/háček (ˇ); 4.The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a grave accent (ˋ); 5.The fifth tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark. The diacritic is placed over " a o e i u ü ".( oh, when ü meets j q x , it changes into u) 有a不放过，没a找o/e, i u 并列时，一定标后者。 Rules: "a "will always be your first choice. When there is no a in the syllable,you should choose o or e. When i and u show up together, you should always put the diacritic over the latter one in the syllable. That's all you need to know for now. There are some more details, but you don't need to be so hard on yourself. You will get to know them when you meet them.