3 Compound Finals and Nasal Finals
There are nine compound finals in Chinese: ai, ei, ao, ou, iu, ui, ie, üe, and er. As you can see, -ao is a compound final made up of the two simple vowels a + o. When pronouncing such a compound, all you need to do is to glide your tongue from one simple vowel to the other (see the table below).
| Compound Finals | Compare to English |
|---|---|
| ai | as the i in “bike” |
| ei | similar to “ey” in the English “hey” |
| ao | similar to “ou” in the English “loud” |
| ou | similar to “oa” in the English “boat” |
| iu | combine Chinese finals “i” and “ou” |
| ui | similar to the sound in “wait”. It is spelled as “wei” when it stands as an independent syllable |
| ie | similar to the ye in “yes” |
| üe | as a slide from pinyin “ü” to the vowel “e” |
| er | Roll up your tongue and keep it in the middle position of your mouth. Similar to the “ear” in the English “early”. |
Watch the video below and learn how to pronounce them:
In addition, there are nine nasal finals in Chinese: an, en, in, un, ün, ang, eng, ing, ong. See the comparison to English:
| Nasal Finals | Compare to English |
|---|---|
| an | similar to “an” in the English “fan” |
| en | similar to “en” in the English “end” |
| in | similar to “in” in the English “pin” |
| un | similar to “when” |
| ün | combine “ü” and “n” |
| ang | similar to “ung” in the English “lung” |
| eng | similar to “eng” in the English “length” |
| ing | similar to “ing” in the English “king” |
| ong | similar to “ong” in the English “song” |
Watch the video below and learn to pronounce them:
