Don’t read this if you plan to listen to the Pimsleur Mandarin audio course!

I like the Pimsleur courses a lot. They allow you to get to a very basic speaking level in a language very quickly.

The courses are audio-only -- in fact, they expressly discourage you from reading the language while you are listening to the course.

Nevertheless, now that I am finished the first eight lessons I feel the need to actually see what the written Chinese (both pinyin and characters) looks like. So here is the vocabulary from Pimseur Quick and Simple Chinese Mandarin, Lesson 1. I show both the standard pinyin and in my own phonetic impression of how the words sound.

Words (with translations from Pimsleur)

对不起

dui4 bu5 qi3

dway boo chee

excuse me

英文

Ying1 wen2

een wen

English (language)

hui4

whey

can

shuo1

shwa

speak

ni3

nee

you

bu4

boo

not

ma5

ma

?

请问

qing3 wen4

chin wen

please let me ask

wo3

w'awe

I/me

普通话

pu3 tong1 hua4

poo tung hwah

common language / Mandarin Chinese (PRC)

一点

yi1 dian3

ee dyar

some / a little

美国

Mei3 guo2

may gw'awe

America

ren2

yren

person

shi4

shr

am/are/is

Characters (with translations from MDBG)

yi1

ee

one; a, an; alone

bu4

boo

no, not; un-; negative prefix

ren2

yren

man; people; mankind; someone else

hui4

whey

assemble, meet together; meeting

ni3

nee

you, second person pronoun

ma5

ma

(question tag)

guo2

gw'awe

nation, country, nation-state

dui4

dway

correct, right; facing, opposed

wo3

w'awe

our, us, i, me, my, we

wen2

wen

literature, culture, writing

shi4

shr

indeed, yes, right; to be; demonstrative pronoun, this, that

pu3

poo

universal, general, widespread

dian3

dyar

dot, speck, spot; point, degree

mei3

may

beautiful, pretty; pleasing

ying1

een

petal, flower, leaf; brave, a hero; England, English

hua4

hwah

speech, talk, language; dialect

shuo1

shwa

speak, say, talk; scold, upbraid

qing3

chin

ask, request; invite; please

qi3

chee

rise, stand up; go up; begin

tong1

tung

pass through, common, communicate

wen4

wen

ask about, inquire after