The earlier you start focusing on pronunciation the better. Most other areas of learning Chinese can be delayed without ill effects (such as learning characters), but the sounds tend to settle in early and it can be difficult to go back and fix errors later (see Best & Tyler, 2007). If...
It’s all thanks to 汉语拼音 (hàn yǔ pīn yīn)— Hanyu pinyin, or simply 拼音 — pinyin. Pinyin is phonetic spelling of 汉字 (hàn zì)— Chinese characters, or the italicized text that follows 汉字 in our posts. In fact, the first thing you should do if you want to speak ...