ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ or Zhuyin Fuhao

About the Bopomofo The bopomofo (pronounced buh puh muh fuh, for the first four symbols of it) is, like the english alphabet, a phonetic alphabet. That is to say, each character is a sound. In Taiwan, students use the bopomofo to learn how to read traditional Chinese characters. It is also a common way to type traditional chinese characters into a computer keyboard, and is used to look up words in dictionaries. The other main alphabet used for learning mandarin is the pinyin system. The pinyin system, adopted by mainland China in 1958, is just another phonetic alphabet used for sounding out mandarin words. Unlike the bopomofo, however, it uses roman characters to sound out the words. The pinyin system has been adopted by the United Nations and is increasingly the standard system worldwide for transcribing mandarin into a roman alphabet. However, many agree that the bopomofo is much better suited for capturing the phonetic structure of the mandarin language than the pinyin system. The bopomofo consists of 37 symbols, which were derived from Chinese characters. Just like in pinyin, there are 21 initials (consonants which start syllables), and 16 finals (kind of like vowels that end syllables). Pinyin has additional "compound finals", which the bopomofo doesn't feel like it needs because it so accurately captures the sound of Chinese pronunciation. Bopomofo Pronunciations Listed below are the 37 bopomofo symbols, with approximate english spellings and a link to a practice card. If you are using internet explorer for windows, you should be able to hear a pronunciation of the character when you click on the symbol. 1) buh card 2) puh card 3) muh card 4) fuh card 5) duh card 6) tuh card 7) nuh card 8) luh card 9) guh card 10) kuh card 11) huh card 12) jee card 13) chee card 14) shee card 15) jzer card 16) chzer card 17) shzer card 18) zhe card 19) dze card 20) tze card 21) sze card 22) ee card 23) oo card 24) euu card 25) ah card 26) oh card 27) uh card 28) ey card 29) ay card 30) eh card 31) aow card 32) owe card 33) ahn card 34) uhn card 35) ang card 36) ong card 37) ur card Class on Monday 3/23 4:30 pm and Wednesday 3/25 4:30 pm? Pls. confirm you can make it....... Reservations are required?