How to Pronounce Chinese Names a Little Better

Mainland China uses the pinyin system to write Mandarin words and names with English letters.​Pinyin isn't used in Cantonese or other Chinese dialects, and it's not as widely used in Taiwan. China officially adopted pinyin in 1958, and earlier emigrants also spelled their names differently. Pinyin wasn't designed to be intuitive for English speakers, and it's common for our first guess to be so far off the mark that a listener can't even recognize their own name. An hour or so of effort is enough for most English speakers to pronounce Mandarin names poorly-but-not-incomprehensibly, similar to how we try our best with French or Russian. Here's what I think are the bare minimum rules you need to memorize to get there:

Consonants

"Zh" sounds like "j", both as in "jump" (not "genre").​"Zh" and "j" are different in Mandarin, and the English "j" isn't quite right for either of them, but it's the closest sound we have. The same is true of "ch"/"q" and "sh"/"x" below. The city of Beijing is bay⁠-⁠jing, and the city of Guangzhou is gwahng⁠-⁠jo. Zhou Enlai, China's premier from 1949-76, is jo un⁠-⁠lai.

"Q" sounds like "ch". The Qing dynasty is pronounced ching.

"X" sounds like "sh". President Xi Jinping is shee jeen⁠-⁠ping. Deng Xiaoping, China's leader from 1978-92, is dung shao⁠-⁠ping. The Xia dynasty is pronounced shah.

"C" sounds like ts, as in "hats" or "pizza". Liu Cixin, author of The Three-Body Problem, is lee⁠-⁠oh tsuh⁠-⁠sheen. (More about that uh vowel below.)

Other consonants are close enough to how they're spelled.

"I" vowels

Most "i" vowels sound like ee. We saw this above with Beijing, the Qing dynasty, and Xi Jinping.

There are exactly three consonant-vowel pairs where "i" sounds like uh: "zi", "ci", and "si", pronounced zuh, tsuh, and suh.​Here's "Sichuan" pronounced by a native speaker. Clearly uh is a poor approximation of this "i". The American "could"/"foot" vowel (which actually matches the "e" in e.g. Henan province) is closer, but there's no phonetic spelling for it that won't confuse untrained speakers. The best approximation of this "i" that's remotely familiar to Americans might be Lucille Ball's trademark "eugh"(?), but that's hard to say and impossible to spell. An advantage of starting with uh is that we tend to de-emphasize it, minimizing the damage. We saw this above with Liu Cixin. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon actress Zhang Ziyi is jahng zuh⁠-⁠yee. The province of Sichuan is suh⁠-⁠chwahn.​"Szechuan" and similar spellings predate the pinyin system.

There are exactly four consonant-vowel pairs where "i" sounds like ur: "zhi", "chi", "shi", and "ri", pronounced jur, chur, shur, and rur.​This "i" varies a lot between different regional accents. Ur is the Beijing/northern/official pronunciation. Qin Shi Huang, who became the first emperor of China in 221 BC, is cheen shur hwahng. The website Zhihu, the Chinese version of Quora, is jur⁠-⁠hoo.

Finally, when "i" comes after "u" it sounds like ay. The Sui dynasty is pronounced sway.

Other vowels will still surprise you, but not as badly as "i". Good luck!