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Learning the sounds of Sheng Mu (声母） in hanyu pinyin (汉语拼音)

Sheng Mu (声母）in  hanyu pinyin (汉语拼音) refers to the initial sound. Taking English phonics as an analogy, you can think of it as the sound of the first letter. For hanyu pinyin, the sheng mu refers to the initial sound, which is usually the sound of the first letter (or first and second letter if the second letter is "h').

What are the sheng mu (声母) in hanyu pinyin (汉语拼音)?

There are 23 sheng mu (声母) in hanyu pin yin and they form the starting letters in pinyin of each character. Once you learn these 23 sheng mu, you more less cover all the initial sounds. 


How to pronounce the sheng mu (声母）?

It's very difficult to describe the sound of each sheng mu. The best I could do is to provide a video to show you the sound of each sheng mu (声母）. You can watch it here:



How to teach sheng mu?

I would usually teach kids the sheng mu by flashing a flash card and testing them what the sound is. Sometimes, I'll do the reverse. I'll make the sound, and ask them to pick the sheng mu card corresponding to the sound I made.

When the kids get familiar with the sheng mu, give them a word and ask them to determine the sheng mu of the word. For example, the Chinese word for slow is 慢 (man). I would say the word 慢  and ask the kids what's the initial sound for this word. The answer should be "m".


Quizzes on sheng mu (声母）

I made a few quizzes on sheng mu with varying difficulty.

In quiz 1, you are given a sheng mu and asked its sound.

In quiz 2, you are given a sound of a sheng mu, and asked which sheng mu is it.

In quiz 3, you are given the sound of a word, and you are to determine what is its initial sound (i.e. the sheng mu for that word). 







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