Yes English word
你 好 Chinese word
nǐ hǎo Pinyin
“knee how” Approximate pronunciation
Chinese writing uses characters like the ones above. Pinyin is used to change Chinese characters to the Roman alphabet which is the alphabet English uses. It is a phonetic way to teach standard pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese to schoolchildren in China as well as to foreign learners. Since Chinese is a tonal language, which means that different tones applied to the same word give it different meanings, diacritical marks placed over the vowels in Pinyin signify different tones. And that’s why our pronunciation is only approximate.
To learn more Mandarin Chinese please visit the Indianapolis Public Library’s World Language Lab at: http://www.imcpl.org/resources/language
