Pinyin Lesson 9 – Compound Finals and Nasal Finals Group 1&2

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Chinese Pinyin Compound Finals and Nasal Finals

ai ei ao ou – an en ang eng ong

From this lesson we will start to talk about Chinese Pinyin Compound Finals and Nasal Finals. There are a lot of them,so we break them in to 6 different groups to practice. Also because there could be more than one vowel in Chinese Pinyin Compound Finals or Nasal Finals, it is very important to know on which vowel we will put the tonal marker on. This is a very important Pinyin order rule. So let’s watch this video, practice the pronunciations and finish the Pinyin Finals quiz!

LESSON INFO


KEYWORDS

  • Chinese Pinyin Compound Finals
    • ai
    • ei
    • ao
    • ou
  • Chinese Pinyin Nasal Finals
    • an
    • en
    • ang
    • eng
    • ong

LESSON NOTES


Chinese Pinyin Compound Finals and Nasal Finals

In a Compound Final, one Main Vowel, and one or two Secondary Vowels. In a Nasal Final, there’s one Vowel, and a Nasal Consonant attached after the Vowel.

 

Chinese Pinyin Compound Finals

ai ei ao ou. In the four of them, the Vowel at the beginning: a-, e-, a-, o- is the Main Vowel, while the Vowel at the end: -i, -i, -o, -u is the Secondary Vowel.

The pronunciation is not simply putting "a+i" together. The Main Vowel sounds more clear and more standard, while the Secondary Vowel sounds not as standard as their original pronunciation. The Secondary Vowel compensates and adjusts itself because the tongue(or jaw) position is affected by the Main Vowel's  tongue(or jaw) position.

 

Chinese Pinyin Nasal Finals

an en ang eng ong

14 Comments
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nour-eddine kassemStudent November 25, 2022 at 2:06 pm

How do I know if someone is trying to say a word that ends with “an” or “ang”?

Denis_90Premium Student November 18, 2022 at 10:43 am

Hi . I cant hear a differences between a and e in ch(a)en she(a)n. and a finals n and ng absolutely the same

MiguelbellaPremium Student July 3, 2022 at 12:44 pm

hello, im finding a bit difficult to pronounce the difference between ang, eng, an and en
thank you very much in advance

Hannah PearcePremium Student February 17, 2022 at 6:55 am

Hi, I am struggling to hear the difference between eng and ang. They both sound like ung to me. Help?

Marc1996Premium Student January 13, 2022 at 2:25 am

Hello! In lesson 4 it was explained that “k” can be used as “ka” “ke” “ku”, but here you use “kou” when using examples of “ou”, which starts with an “o”. Is there any explanation for that? I’m getting a bit confused. Thanks!

ChineseFor.UsAcademic Team January 18, 2022 at 10:16 am

Please treat o and ou as two independent finals.

RainPremium Student August 5, 2021 at 5:37 am

Having difficulty in listening to gan gen kan ken etc

Mauricio LauPremium Student November 5, 2020 at 7:07 pm

Having trouble distinguishing n and ng when doing the practice quiz any tips?

ZamirPremium Student June 15, 2020 at 8:00 pm

Apart from what was taught in the video, is there any other tip for differentiating between -n and -ng? I still can’t notice the difference in words like zeng and zen or zang and zan. For context, I am basing myself on the pronunciation from the quiz.

Rush3112Premium Student August 14, 2019 at 1:17 am

if you can give short audio of each finals … it would be nice to practice and we dont have to go threw whole video. Thank you

It’s a great idea to include the audios. We’ll definitely add it to our to-do-list. Thank you for the suggestion!

Lilian MartinPremium Student April 2, 2020 at 4:14 am

Would be handy! I wonder if it got to your to do list?

abumajedPremium Student August 28, 2023 at 2:14 am

Hi is it still a work in progress ?

mtrpop3Premium Student December 24, 2017 at 9:10 am

It sounds to me as if the -n actually closes off air from leaving the mouth like a true consonant, but -ng seems to not completely close off air from leaving the mouth, so that is sort of a nasal vowel and it makes a diphthong with the previous vowel. Am I hearing something that is not really there at all? 🙂

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