Media & Culture: Vocabulary for entertainment, music, and film

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Pinyin is the standard romanisation used to show Mandarin pronunciation using the Latin alphabet. You’ll often see tone marks on the vowels to show the four tones (plus the neutral tone), for example mā / má / mǎ / mà / ma. “Numbered pinyin” shows the same tones using a number after the syllable instead of tone marks, for example ma1 / ma2 / ma3 / ma4 / ma (sometimes written as ma5 for the neutral tone). Numbered pinyin is handy when you can’t easily type tone marks, while tone-mark pinyin is usually easier to read once you’re used to it.

电视

• Pinyin: diàn shì
• Numbered pinyin: dian4 shi4
• English translation: television

电影

• Pinyin: diàn yǐng
• Numbered pinyin: dian4 ying3
• English translation: film, movie

电影院

• Pinyin: diàn yǐng yuàn
• Numbered pinyin: dian4 ying3 yuan4
• English translation: cinema

歌

• Pinyin: gē
• Numbered pinyin: ge1
• English translation: song

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