For beginners, Pinyin

I've been thinking about upload this image for long time. Students always ask me how many syllables we have when we combine our Pyinyin. And my answer is always now a lot if you don't consider tones.

Basically we have around 450 syllables total, as you can see from the attached image. However, not all of them are used so often as daily conversation and even modern Chinese. Some columns are confusing like "sh-x, zh-j, ch-q", but as you can see, whenever vowels are in the middle and back of the mouth, you can only find "zh/ch/sh", on the other hand "j/q/x" comes only when vowels are in the front of the mouth.

For beginners, please remember, it is very critical to practice your pronunciation hard to let people understand you easily