YIN-4

('yin' in the fourth tone)

There are some 62 standard Chinese characters that are spoken 'yin'. Common sound-defining components in some of the more complicated characters spoken 'yin' are: 因 (10 occurences). The reoccurence of other sound-defining elements is low.

When, in a monosyllabic Chinese word, or in a bisyllabic Chinese word where 'yin' is the first syllable,  'y' comes before the vowel 'i', the combination 'yi' is spoken as just one vowel,  any of the 'i' in 'India', regardless of what follows the 'yi'.

When 'yin' is the second syllable in a bisyllabic word, it is spoken with 'y' an in 'yes', followed by the firt syllable in 'India'.

The initial 'y' is spoken like the initial 'i' in 'India', followed by a 'y' as in 'yes', when it comes before the vowel 'e' or 'a' (but not 'ao' and not 'ang'). It is spoken like the initial 'y' in 'yes', when it comes before the vowel 'o' and 'u', before the double vovels 'ao', 'ou', and 'ue', and before 'ang'.

After the initial 'y', a 'u' is always spoken like the German umlaut 'ue'. When 'e' follows 'yu', a German umlaut 'ue' is spoken, and after that, a 'e' as in 'yes'.

When just the vowel 'a' follows an initial 'y' the 'a' is spoken like the 'a' in 'bar'. However, when a 'n' follows 'ya', the 'a' is spoken like the 'e' in 'Ben'.

But when a 'g' follows the 'yan', forming 'yang', the pronunciation of the 'a' reverts back to that of 'a' in 'bar'.

So, Pinyin looks so easy, but can be quite tricky.

While speaking the initial 'y' like the vowel 'i', followed by a 'y', instead of just the consonant 'y', may seem to be an additional exception that must be learned and makes Chinese again more difficult, it makes it in fact easier to speak the tones correctly. The reason for this assessment is that for dual vowels, one just has to remember stress, not tone, and the tones will come out quite well. In the first tone, the two vowels in the 'iye' sound combination are pronounced with equal stress. In the second tone, there is a strong stress on the second vowel. In the third tone, the stress is equal, but before a first, second, and fourth tone, only half a third tone is spoken, and then, the stress is on the first syllable. And in the fourth tone, there is a strong stress on the first syllable.

印 = to print

The assumption that written Chinese just uses pictographs to convert meanings, while the writing systems of other languages are sound representations, simply is wrong. While Chinese does use pictographs, many words, especially modern words, fully are sound representations.

The sound representation for the syllable 'in(4)' is the character 印, the sound representation for the syllable 'du(4)' is  度, for the syllable 'di(4)' it is 箫, and for the syllable 'an(1)', 安 is used.

With such a system, it is possible to write English words, or, as a matter of fact, words of any language, in Chinese characters.

Let's look at some examples.

印度教 = yin(4)du(4) jiao(4) = Hinduism, lit. Hindu religion

The character used to represent 'Hindu' have absolutely nothing to do with the Hindu religion; the are purely sound representation.

Another word:

印第安 = yin(4)di(4)an(4) = Indian (native American)