Abstract—The present research paper critically examines use of pinyin as a substitute of characters by
Zimbabwean students during acquisition of Chinese language. A questionnaire survey and character
recognition survey was done and it was discovered that the use of pinyin as a substitute for Chinese characters
negatively affects the acquisition of more complex characters. It was concluded that since each Chinese
character is an individual morpheme that carries meaning, therefore dependence on Chinese pinyin negatively
affects vocabulary acquisition. The paper recommends that use of pinyin in teaching Chinese language should
be limited to the first few weeks, because pinyin was developed to help students acquire the phonetic system of
Chinese language rather than the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar. The paper suggests that there is
need to explore more ways of balancing the teaching of pinyin and characters in a way that will motivate
learners to like Chinese language.