Finals

What is Final Sound

A syllable in Chinese is composed of an initial, which is a consonant that begins the syllable, and a final, wich covers the rest of the syllable. In modern Chinese, there are 38 finals, including simple finals (single vowels), compound finals (two or three vowels together), and nasal finals. Here we will focus on simple finals, compound finals that consist two vowels, and nasal finals.

• • simple finals: i, u, y, a, o, e, ê

  • compound finals: ai, ei, ao, ou

  • nasal finals: an, en, ang, eng

  • special case (retroflex): er

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) Vowel Chart