Hello,

I am brand new to Chinese. I spoke with a Chinese student online who is helping me, he said to first learn the Pinyin symbols. Is there a list for this? It doesn't seem very easy to find so I am wondering if maybe that is not the best way forward.

Any info on this would be great!

Thanks,
Scott

I'm not sure what your friend meant by "symbols", but I assume he means you should learn to pronounce a word correctly by it's pinyin. And he is very right indeed. Try to really nail pronounciation right from the start and work on that with a teacher!

Check this link for guidance on how to read pinyin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Rules_given_in_terms_of_English_pronunciation

The good news is that Chinese doesn't have a lot of different syllables compared to English so you can just learn them all and then move on. The tones are a different matter of course and your ear will need its time to learn to differentiate them.

Zacharias

I don't think Skritter is really the right tool for this, even if it is possible to make a list with characters representing each sound.

There are several programs that give you the pinyin and pronunciation - here's one:

http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation

There are also several available for Android and iOS.

If you want to use SRS, get Anki (free):

http://ankisrs.net/

and the "Chinese pinyin with audio deck"

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2307529885

I would also recommend this deck to help with pronunciation:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1294321695

Good luck!