Let’s start this article by choosing the right title. Linguistically there are no vowels and consonants in Chinese. Chinese words consist of clusters of letters — initials (声母/聲母 shēngmǔ) and finals (韵母/韻母 yùnmǔ).
We prepared an interactive Pinyin table for you, click on each initial to listen to its sound:
Initials
| bSample: 八 bā (eight) | pSample: 怕 pà (fear) | mSample: 媽 mā (mother) | fSample: 法 fǎ (method) | dSample: 答 dá (reply) |
| tSample: 他/她 tā (he/she) | nSample: 拿 ná (hold) | lSample: 辣 là (spicy) | gSample: 歌 gē (song) | kSample: 課 kè (lesson) |
| hSample: 喝 hē (to drink) | jSample: 機 jī (machine) | qSample: 七 qī (seven) | xSample: 西 xī (west) | zSample: 自 zì (oneself) |
| cSample: 詞 cí (word) | sSample: 四 sì (four) | rSample: 日 rì (sun) | zhSample: 知 zhī (knowledge) | chSample: 吃 chī (eight) |
| shSample: 時 shí (time) |
The colours are not random. The initials of the same colour have a similar way of pronunciation. If you want to dive deep into the specifics, this wikipedia page is a nice place for that. The ones you need to pay closer attention to are:
1) Aspirated consonants
p, t, k are aspirated, meaning they are pronounced with an accompanying expulsion of air, similar to how you say “top” and “pat” in English.
2) Special 7
You might’ve noticed that even though z, c, s, r, zh, ch, sh had “i” sound in the end, it didn’t sound like “ee”, the sound was rather comparable to the sound of “e” in English word “roses”. This sound change makes these initials special.
Now try to go through every initial and see if you can produce the same sound. Here’s a quick tip though: these are not English letters. That seems obvious, yet most of the beginners are going to pronounce them in an English manner. Don’t worry if you can’t sound too close, we’ll have a lot more practice ahead.
I suggest we’ll proceed to the finals and then see how initials and finals cooperate together to make a word.
Finals
| aSample: 啊 a (~ah) | oSample: 喔 ō (~oh) | eSample: 餓 è (hungry) | iSample: 一 yī (one) | uSample: 五 wǔ (five) |
| üSample: 雨 yǔ (rain) | aiSample: 愛 aì (love) | eiSample: 美 mě3 (beautiful) | uiSample: 水 shuǐ (~ah) | aoSample: 貓 māo (cat) |
| ouSample: 樓 lóu (floor) | iuSample: 六 liù (six) | ieSample: 別 bié (don’t) | üeSample: 學 xué (study) | erSample: 二 èr (two) |
| anSample: 安 ān (safe) | enSample: 們 mén (door) | inSample: 品 pǐn (product) | unSample: 論 lùn (opinion) | ünSample: 群 qún (group) |
| angSample: 忙 máng (busy) | engSample: 能 néng (able to) | ingSample: 輕 qīng (slight) | ongSample: 龍 lóng (dragon) |
The division here is self explanatory: simple finals, compound finals, nasal finals.
How do we combine initials and finals? There is a very limited combination of them, actually, (which we will compose later), but the combinations are always either inital + final (ex. b + ié = bié 別), or just final (even more limited, ex. aì – 愛).
Let’s now learn a few common words that combine initials and finals (click on the character to hear the sound):
(dà) – big
(nián) – year
(xiǎo) – small
(guó) – country