Some friends think that Chinese Pinyin is the foundation of Chinese characters and learn Mandarin chinese; you can not master Mandarin Chinese without learning Pinyin well. This is a big mistake. Chinese characters are not Pinyin characters but characters combined by form, pronunciation and meanings which are mainly by character form and supplemented by pronunciation.

If students spend lots of time and experience to learn Pinyin at the beginning of learning Chinese but seldom contact characters, they will be accustomed to recognize Chinese characters by means of recognizing Pinyin when they accept the teaching of Pinyin but could hardly accept the form of complicated Chinese characters. So maybe they can’t leave Pinyin. This is a undoubted curved way for learning for foreigners who lacks the Chinese environment.

In the teaching practice, we’ve met so many foreign students who can read clearly and loudly of text with Pinyin noted, but without understand the meanings. If they leave Pinyin, they can’t recognize characters even taught just now. That’s because their sensitivities to character forms are not trained at the beginning, which leads to their unawareness of recognizing characters when they are “moved”.

According to our teaching experience with many years, new comers should learn characters first and then learn Pinyin when they’ve reached certain levels.

Chinese Pinyin is only an assisted tool after all. Students can look into dictionary to learn Mandarin Chinese with it and typing, writing on computers. But it is not Chinese, and can’t replace Chinese characters. The basic function above all is communication with others. Therefore, when learn Mandarin Chinese especially spoken Chinese at the beginning, you should try best to learn more about Chinese characters themselves.