Pinyin, The Official Chinese System of Romanizing Chinese - Page 2

Written Chinese is uniform throughout China, but the spoken language varies from region to region. The Beijing dialect is the official dialect and is taught in schools throughout China. It is known as putonghua or as Mandarin outside China. The pitches or "tomes" present a problem for novice speakers. With its tens of thousands of characters, Chinese has only 400 syllables with which to pronounce them. As a result, a single sound can represent more than 100 different written characters. Tones and the use of compounds multiply the number of available word sounds.

Putonghua , the national dialect has four tones. The Cantonese dialect has the most, with nine. In the four tones of putonghua , the word "ma"

The first tone (flat) "ma" in means "mother."
The second tone (rising) "ma" can mean "numb" or "hemp."
The third tone "ma" the voice dips and then rises, means "horse."
The fourth tone "ma" starts high and falls abruptly, means "to scold."