Learning Basic Chinese 学基本中文 (xué jī běn zhōng wén)

Tone Marks
First	ā
Second	á
Third	ǎ
Fourth	à
Neutral	a

Pinyin and Characters

Pinyin use the tone marks to indicate the corresponding characters. More than one character can be in the same form of Pinyin, with the same tone marks.

Side Note:

• Although “室" is translated as “room”, there are more than one character and phrases that can also be translated into the word “room”. Such as "间" and "房间".
• The phrase “房间” is often translated as the word “room”, and using the character “间” alone is usually used as a measure word for rooms.

Polyphonic Word 多音字 (duō yīn zì): ***

• Many of the same Chinese characters has more than one way to pronounce.
• Although it may not be any different when translated into English, the meaning of the character may vary from one pronunciation to another when used in Chinese.
• Example: 教
  教 jiāo - to teach
  教 jiào - to instruct
  
  Reference: 教_百度百科

On the other hand, there are characters with the same pronunciation yet with different meanings: *

• 是 vs 室 vs 世, these characters all has the fourth tone mark and the same Pinyin: shì
• The character "是" can mean "yes" and "不是" means "no".
• The character "室" means "room" such as in "教室" which means "classroom" or in "卧室" which means "bedroom".
• The character "世" means "generation, world, era".

Links and Page References:

• 百度词典 (bǎi dù cí diǎn) Baidu Dictionary
• 教_百度百科
• More about "吗": 吗 - Wikitionary
• 百度词典搜索_错