นิNidNoi

Unit 1 · Front matter · Step 1 of 7

Chinese writing

Characters, pinyin, and tone marks

Same lesson as the NidNoi app — free preview of the real course path.

  • Characters 汉字

    Meaning in each square

    Mandarin is written with characters (Hanzi), not an alphabet. Each character is a meaning unit — sometimes one syllable, sometimes part of a longer word. NidNoi teaches Simplified characters used in mainland China.

    你好nǐ hǎo

  • Pinyin 拼音

    Latin letters for Mandarin sounds

    Pinyin spells Mandarin with Roman letters plus tone marks. It is how you type, look up words, and learn pronunciation. Public signs often add English or plain Latin under the characters — close cousins of the pinyin line you will see in NidNoi.

    北京Běijīng

  • Tone marks

    Same letters, different words

    Mandarin has four main tones (plus a light tone). The mark on a pinyin vowel is part of the spelling — mā / má / mǎ / mà are four different words. You will hear them next before tracing characters.

    妈 / 麻 / 马 / 骂mā / má / mǎ / mà

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