Chinese name pronunciation is simple if you read Chinese characters. Many people don't read Chinese but have Chinese friends. Just like I don't speak French but have friends in France. We surely don't want to embarrass ourselves mispronouncing their names especially the surnames. Or insult our friends calling the names wrongly.

The best thing is to ask them how they pronounce it. And say it a few times mentally, and then verbally during the conversation.

What if we have not spoken to them? And only know them through written correspondence? So, how to pronounce Chinese names that are romanized. Chinese from different countries romanized their names in different ways. Thus, Chinese name pronunciation can be a bit complicated. However, it's safe to first understand the Hanyu Pinyin system. It is increasingly popular and becoming the standard system of romanizing Chinese words.

Chinese in the People's Republic of China (PRC) follows the Hanyu Pinyin 汉语拼音 system in romanizing their names. Pinyin system is easy to read once you know the, for lack of better words, Chinese alphabets. These Chinese alphabets are actually syllables that are called the Zhuyin 注音 or Bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈ syllables. Bopomofo are the first 4 alphabets, like how we say ABC.

The Bopomofo are basic syllables that are mixed and matched to show how a Chinese character is pronounced. For example, let's take the word horse 馬. It is pronounced as 'ma'. And the simplistic Pinyin system is written as just ma. But the Zhuyin system writes it as ㄇㄚˇ.

To help you further on Chinese name pronunciation, here is the complete Zhuyin alphabets (right) compared to Pinyin (left) are:

b ㄅ, f ㄆ, m ㄇ, f ㄈ, d ㄉ, t ㄊ, n ㄋ, l ㄌ, g ㄍ, k ㄎ, h ㄏ, j ㄐ, q ㄑ, x ㄒ,

zh ㄓ, ch ㄔ, sh ㄕ, r ㄖ, z ㄗ, c ㄘ, s ㄙ.

a ㄚ, o ㄛ, e ㄜ, ê ㄝ, ai ㄞ, ei ㄟ, ao ㄠ, ou ㄡ, an ㄢ, en ㄣ, ang ㄤ, eng ㄥ, er ㄦ,

i (or yi) ㄧ, u (or wu) ㄨ, ü (or yu) ㄩ.

The above are sounds that are in the Mandarin Chinese language. The sounds are from the initials and finals.

The initials combine with the finals to form a new syllable. Example, m + a becomes 'ma'. Finals can stand on its own as a syllable for a Chinese character. Example, 'an' can become the word peace 安.

An initial can also combine with two finals to become a new syllable or way to pronounce a word. Example, j + i + an becomes 'jian' 件.

Once you know the basic sounds, Chinese name pronunciation becomes easy.

Next, you need to know the main four tones of Mandarin.

The Pinyin are supposed to be written with a marking over the vowel. Example:

1. mā - the first tone is flat or high level.

2. má - the second tone is rising or high-rising.

3. mǎ - the third tone is falling-rising or low.

4. mà - the fourth tone is falling or high-falling.

There is also a fifth tone, ·ma - which is a neutral tone.

I do not use these markings while writing Pinyin Chinese (the system I follow) in my articles. Out of convenience I supposed. My keyboard doesn't type out those vowels with macron or caron.

There are other ways of romanizing Chinese names. One example is Wade-Giles system. I will not go into details of the others. With the Pinyin being the standard used in the PRC, Chinese language is also taught in this system now.

To improve your Chinese name pronunciation skill, you can get some good Chinese language CDs. They will teach you how to pronounce Chinese words accurately using the Pinyin system.