A Chinese Alphabet??

Did you know that Chinese has an alphabet?

Neither did I. 

I heard about it my first full day here. I was at Leanne's house and one of the Brazilian kids was showing off his skills at Bopomofo, which is the common name of the alphabet. The characters system is called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (MPS).

Here's how it works. There are initial sounds -- which I've written below along with their pinyin translation -- and the final sounds... Essentially consonants and vowels. 

We looked at the initials in my first Chinese class. I'll explain it to the best of my ability. 

The first eleven are pretty easy. Just read them like there's a "uh" after the letter. Buh, puh, muh, fuh....... 

ㄅ b 
ㄆ p 
ㄇ m
ㄈ f

ㄉ d
ㄊ t
ㄋ n
ㄌ l

ㄍ g
ㄎ k
ㄏ h

These three are said with a big smile :) 
ㄐ j       "jee"
ㄑ q    "chee"
ㄒ x     "shee"

Curl your tongue back in your mouth for these. 
ㄓ zh 
ㄔ ch
ㄕ sh
ㄖ r      

"r"  is the hardest to pronounce because it sounds like a mix between a j and an r. Your tongue gets pulled back the farthest for this one. 

These are like a hissing sound. 
ㄗ z 
ㄘ c
ㄙ s


Fun fact: Chinese keyboards have both English and MPS. I separated the characters above the same way that they're separated on the MPS keyboard. It goes from left to right. The initials dominate the left side of they keyboard while the finals reside on the right. The four tone buttons are above the groups of three. If you're having a hard time visualizing this and have a iTouch/iPad/iPhone, the MPS keyboard is called "Chinese - Traditional - Zhuyin." Check it out. That's your homework. :D