LessonsChinese · Lesson 2
Chinese · Lesson 2 · The finals & pinyin’s spelling tricks
After the initial comes the final. Mandarin has six simple vowels and about thirty finals built from them. Most sound the way they look; this lesson spends its time on the places where pinyin spelling misleads.
🔊 The sound in these lessons comes from your device’s own Mandarin voice, so it differs from device to device. Recorded audio will follow.
🔤 The six simple vowels
| a | the a of “father” | |
| o | a short w glides into “aw”: say “waw”. It follows only b, p, m, f and w | |
| e | like the “uh” of “duh”, but made further back and with the lips unrounded | |
| i | the ee of “see” | |
| u | the oo of “too”, lips well rounded | |
| ü | say “ee” and, without moving the tongue, round the lips as for “oo” (French u, German ü) |
⚠️ Two letters that hide something
The letter i has three sounds
After z, c, s and after zh, ch, sh, r the letter i is not “ee”. It is only the buzz of the consonant held a little longer: si is a long “sss” with voice, shi a long “shrr”. After every other initial, i is the ordinary “ee”.
ü in disguise
After j, q, x and y the two dots of ü are dropped, because a real “u” never occurs there: 去 qù, 学 xué and 月 yuè are all ü. Only after n and l are the dots written, because nu and lu exist too.
🔗 Two vowels gliding together
Under each word: its final and the English word it nearly rhymes with.
👃 Finals that end in -n or -ng
Keep -n and -ng apart: for -n the tip of the tongue touches behind the teeth; for -ng the back of the tongue rises and the tip stays down. The pair 看 kàn / 上 shàng is worth looping.
➕ Finals that start with i, u or ü
✍️ Pinyin’s four spelling tricks
y and w add no sound
At the start of a syllable i, u and ü are written yi, wu and yu: 一 yī, 五 wǔ, 鱼 yú. Before another vowel, i becomes y and u becomes w: ia → ya, uo → wo.
iu, ui and un are abbreviations
iu stands for iou, ui for uei and un for uen — the middle vowel is dropped in writing but still heard: 六 liù is “lyoh”, 对 duì is “dway”, 春 chūn is “chwun”.
ian is “yen”
In ian and üan the a sounds like the e of “yes”: 天 tiān is “tyen”, 见 jiàn is “jyen”.
Where the tone mark goes
On a if there is one; otherwise on o or e; in iu and ui on the last letter: hǎo, xiè, guó, liù, duì.