Chinese Phonetic Alphabet
汉语拼音方案
 Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Fāng'àn.

Pinyin Lesson Two

Simple Finals

Finals are all sounds after initials.

Some finals are single vowel, e.g., ‘a’ ‘o’ ‘e’ ‘i’ ‘u’ and ‘ü’.

Some finals are compounds, e.g., ‘ai’ ‘ei’ ‘ao’ and ‘ou’.

Some finals end with ‘n’ or ‘ng’, e.g., ‘in’ ‘en’ ‘ang’ and ‘iong’.

The pronunciation of vowels is similar to English or some European languages. But the vowel ‘e’ needs special attention. It is pronounced as 'ir' in ‘shirt’, or 'ur' in 'turn' without ‘r’ sound, not English 'e' [i:]

You don't have to learn these individual sounds now.

Listen to recording or your instructor carefully and pay close attention to these sounds.

Sounds are best learned in a connected speech.