Chinese Pronunciation 101: Part 4

(Combination of Vowels, continued)

– ong is like “ong” in kong
– ou is like “ow” in low
– ua is like “ua” in guava
– uan like one
– uang like “oo” + ang
– ui is like way
– un is like “wou” in would and ending in “n” sound (woon)
– uo sounds like “wo” as in wall
– uai is like why
– ua is like “wa”
– üan like yuan and written without two dots
– üe is like “yue” (“we” in “wet”)

You may be overwhelmed at this moment by all those sounds. But that is all you’ll be learning. We’ll cover this one by one, this is just to give you a head up. Nothing to panic.

Comparing with English pronunciation (think about it for a minute, you may forget and get amazed about how much you have learned in English language), Chinese phonology is much simpler, right?

I’ll cover tones in a separate topic.