Pinyin is a method of phonetic notation that uses the Roman alphabet to represent the sounds of the Chinese language. It is the official way to write Mandarin Chinese in the Chinese mainland, and it is also a common way to teach Chinese as a second language. Pinyin represents each Mandarin Chinese syllable as a combination of an initial consonant, a final vowel, and a tone. So, it helps people learn to read and say Chinese words more accurately by letting them spell out each syllable in a way that they are already used to. For example, the simplified Chinese character for "hello" is "你好" while the traditional Chinese equivalent is "你好". In Pinyin, it is written "nǐ hǎo," and the accent marks show how each syllable should be pronounced.