But nearly every Chinese character can be represented in Hanyu Pinyin using a combination of initials, finals and tones. When writing the first draft of his Hanyu Pinyin proposal, Zhou remembers ...

Cantonese Pinyin has 56 finals (the equivalent of consonants in English), while Putonghua has 37. Poon says the large amount of finals is one of the main reasons why many Chinese learners (both ...

Mandarin characters don't give us the sound of a word, so the Chinese invented pinyin to help their learners ... the start of a syllable, and 36 finals, the end of the syllable.