Burt: Correct! Mandarin characters don't give us the sound of a word, so the Chinese invented pinyin to help their learners. They took the letters of the Roman alphabet, the same we use for ...

Karen I. Chen is a writer, editor, and travel advisor. Karen's work has appeared in publications including The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine, Departures, and more. While the prospect of ...

find it to be a lot more challenging than Mandarin. For Hongkongers, learning Cantonese Pinyin is also “optional” to a certain extent. “They don’t have to rely on Pinyin to express ...