Chinese does not use an alphabet like English. Learn what Pinyin letters describe, what tone marks do, and how the pronunciation guide connects to written characters.
Chinese characters represent meaningful spoken syllables or parts of words. Pinyin uses Roman letters to show Mandarin pronunciation, but it does not replace the characters used in normal Chinese writing.
你 is the written character. nǐ is its Pinyin pronunciation. In a word such as 你好, two characters work together.
Pinyin supports pronunciation and lookup. Characters carry the written form learners must recognise in Chinese text.
Chinese characters show the words in the sentence.
Pinyin marks the Mandarin sounds and tones.
A translation explains meaning; it is not part of the Chinese spelling system.
Many Mandarin syllables can be described with an opening consonant, a final sound, and a tone. Some syllables have no initial.
In nǐ, the initial is n.
In nǐ, the written final is i.
The mark on ǐ shows the third tone.
Learn each new HSK word with its character, Pinyin, tone, meaning, and a complete example instead of memorising a sound in isolation.
HSKBase keeps characters, Pinyin, audio, meanings, and examples together. Choose a standard explicitly before treating a level list as your study target.