Pinyin finals

In a previous post, I described the basics of Pinyin, and mentioned that words are made up of Initials (starts of words) and Finals. There are only a predefined set of each. Then in my most recent Learning Mandarin post, I described the Initials (or starts of words). In today’s post, I want to look at Finals (or the ends of words).

a sounds like the a in mama ai sounds like eye an sounds like arn ang sounds like ung ao sounds like oww

e sounds like er ei sounds like the name of the letter A en sounds like un eng sounds like ung er sounds a bit like a pirate ARRGH

i sounds like the name of the letter E but can also sound like a short er ia sounds like eeah ian sounds like eeyan iang sounds like eeyoung iao sounds like ee-oww ie sounds like air in sounds like like “in” in English ing also sounds like “ing” in English iong sounds like ee-yong iu sounds like ee-yo

o sounds like or ong sounds like ong ou sounds like oh

u sounds like uuww ua sounds like wa uai sounds like why uan sounds like wan uang sounds like wong ui sounds like whey un sounds like ewe-n uo sounds like or

ū sounds like ewww ūan sounds like ewww-en ūe sounds like ewww-air ūn sounds like oon

Words are basically made up of one of initials I mentioned last time, and one of the finals above. And that applies to people’s names as well.

Now that’s quite a list, but you do get used to them pretty fast, if you spend time listening carefully to someone speaking.

2020-03-13