ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Bopomofo

Bopomofo is a way to write Chinese sounds using symbols. Imagine if you made a secret code with your friends where you used pictures to represent different words. Bopomofo is kind of like that, but for Chinese sounds!

Instead of using regular letters like in English, Bopomofo uses a special set of symbols that look like little lines and circles. When you see these symbols, you can know how to say the different sounds in Chinese.

Each symbol represents a different sound, kind of like how each letter in the English alphabet represents a different sound. But instead of just 26 letters, there are many more symbols in Bopomofo!

Learning Bopomofo can be very helpful if you want to speak and read Chinese. Even if you don't know Chinese yet, you can still learn Bopomofo and use it as a secret code with your friends!