Being a tonal language, when speaking Mandarin it is super important to be conscious of the pitch and inflection in your voice. Utilizing four tones—level, rising, falling, and high-rising (think going down then up), words with different meanings and syllables are distinguished despite having the same series of consonants and vowels.

Outside of the characters you see, to make reading Mandarin easier Pinyin was created. Pinyin is a romanized version of the complex language helping to correct pronunciation and comprehension. Utilizing Latin letters Pinyin aids beginners in the learning process and when writing in Mandarin. For example, the name David in Mandarin is 大卫， but for those who find it hard to read characters, it can also be written as Dà wèi in pinyin.