1 Spelling

Spelling is the joining of two or more sounds into one syllable. e.g.

b+a→ba

g+u→gu

d+i→di

2 Compound Vowels (diphthongs and triphthongs)

A compound vowel is formed by a combination of two or three vowels. The pronunciation of a compound vowel is starting from one vowel and then moving to or towards another vowel; hence there must be changes in the position of the tongue, the opening of the mouth and the shape of the lips. There are 13 compound vowels:

a    o    e    ai   ei   ao  ou

i     ia   ie   iao iou

u    ua  uo  uai uei

ü    üe

3 Vowels Plus Nasal Consonants

The following 16 compound sounds are spelt by putting nasal consonants after vowels:

an        en        ang            eng            ong

ian       in         iang           ing             iong

uan      uen      uang          ueng

üan      ün

The sound values of single vowels and compound vowels deserves special attention. A brief explanation will be given below:

1) “a”and “a” in “in”, “ua” are [A]. “a” in “ai”, “uai”, “an”, “uan” and “üan” is the front-low vowel [a] with the lips unrounded. Strictly speaking, “a” in “ai” and “üan” is similar to [æ], while [i] should be [1]. “a” in “ao”, “iao”, “ang”, “iang”, and “uang” is the back-low unrounded vowel [ɑ], and “a” in “ian” is the front mid-low, unrounded vowel [ε].

2) “o” or “o” in “uo”, “ou” and “iou” is the back-midhigh vowel [o], but a little wider, with the lips not too rounded. The rounding of the lips becomes increasingly less from “o” to “no”, and “ou”. [u] in “ou” is a little winder, while the sound of [o] in “iou” is rather weak. [o] in “ao”, “iao”, “ong” and “iong” is the back-high vowel with rounded lips and winder than [u].

3) “e” is the vowel [ɤʌ] uttered from back mid-high to mid-low with the lips unrounded; it may be written simply as [ɤ].“e” in “ie”, “üe” is the front mid-low vowel [ε] with the lips unrounded, while ê alone is also [ε].“e” in “ei”, “uei” is the front mid-high vowel [e] with the lips unrounded and [i] is a little wider, while the sound of [e] in “uei” is rather weak. “e” in “en” and “uen” is the high neutral vowel [ə], while the sound of [e] in “uen” is rather weak. “e” in “eng”, “ueng” is the back mid-low vowel with the lips unrounded.

4) In ün,ü [y] is followed by a weak [i] sound.

4 The Syllabic Construction of Peking Dialect

(1) In Peking dialect, a single vowel, a compound vowel or a vowel with a consonant (whether the consonant stands before the vowel or after) may form a syllable, but a consonant cannot form a syllable by itself. Every syllable has its definite tone. e.g.

è    (饿, hungry)                           ài (爱, to love)

ēn  (恩, favour)                            hé (河, river)

bǎo (饱, full, to eat one’s fill)       shuāng (霜, frost)

(2) Every syllable is a Chinese character. Therefore, according to the Chinese traditional method of phonetic analysis, the sound of a character may be generally divided into “shēng”声母(the consonant at the beginning of a syllable) and “yùn”韵母(the rest of the syllable after the consonant). Besides, every character has its proper tone. In “hé” and “shuāng” given in the above examples, “h” and “sh” are “shēng” 声母,  “e” and “uang” are yùn” 韵母; “hé” is in the second tone, and “shuāng” is in the first tone. But there are also characters which are composed of only “yùn”韵母, such as; “ēn” in the above examples.

(3) Every syllable in Peking Dialect consists of a “shēng” and a “yùn”. A “yùn” can be a single (main) vowel, e.g. chá (tea); it can also be a vowel plus a medial vowel and a “yùn ending”, e.g. biǎo (watch); sometimes it can be a medial vowel and a main vowel. e.g. shuō (to speak, to say); or only a vowel and a “yùn ending”, e.g. kàn (to see). There are only three medial vowels: “i”, “u” and “ü”. “yùn” can be divided into four types:1.those without medical vowel or without “i”, “u”, “ü” as the main vowel; 2.those with the medial vowel “i” or using “i” as the main vowel; 3.those with the medial vowel “u” or using “n” as the main vowel;4.those with the medial vowel “ü” or using “ü” as the main vowel. Any vowel can be a main vowel and any consonant (except “-ng”) can be a “shēng”. The combinations of “shēng” and “yùn” are chiefly determined by the positions of articulation of “shēng” and the type of “yùn”.

5 Four Points about the Ways of Writing

(1) When “i”, “u”, “ü” and a “yùn”韵母 beginning with “i”, “u” or “ü” are not preceded by any “shēng” 声母，they must be written as follows:

yi   ya  ye  yan      you      yao      yin yang    ying     yong

wu       wa       wo       wai      wei

wan     wen     wang   weng

yu        yue      yuan    yun

(The two dots on ü are omitted.)

(2) When “ü” or a “yùn”韵母 beginning with “ü” spells with “j”, “q”, “x”, they may be written as “ju”, “qu”, “xu”, without the two dots on “ü”, but when the consonants “n”, “l” are followed by “ü”, the two dots cannot be omitted, e.g. “nü”, “lü”.

(3) “iou”, “nei” and “uen” are basic forms, but they must be written as “-iu”, “-ui” and “-un”, when they are preceded by a consonant. The tone-graph is placed on the last vowel “u” or “i” in the simplified forms “-iu” and “-ui”, e.g. “niú”, “guì”.

(4) In case two syllables of which the second one begins with “a”, “o”, “e” should run into each other and cause confusion in pronunciation, the dividing sign “’” must be used. e.g.

fáng'ài       妨碍    (to hinder)

fān'gài       翻盖    (to rebuild)

Tones

The tone is the variation of pitch (chiefly that of its height, rising and falling). The tone rises and falls by gliding and not by bounding. Every syllable in Chinese has its definite tone, and therefore tones are as important as vowels and consonants in forming syllables. It is only because of the difference of tones that the meanings of words are different, although the spelling is the same.

There are four tones in Peking dialect. Let us draw a short vertical line to represent the range of the variation of pitch and divide it into four equal intervals with five points. These five points, counted from the bottom to the top, represent the five degrees:

5    the high-pitch

4    the mid-high pitch

3    the middle-pitch

2    the mid-low-pitch

1    the low-pitch

The four tones in Peking dialect are represented by (1), (2), (3) and (4) in the following fig.:

We use the pitch-graphs “˥˥, ˧˥, ˨˩˦, ˥˩” to represent the four tones. But they can be simplified as follows: “ˉ ˊ ˇ ˋ”. They must be placed on the vowel (if there is only one vowel) or on the main vowel of a syllable.

Table of the Speech Sounds of Peking Dialect

(This table is continued on the following two pages. On the record, the columns are read downward, beginning “ba,pa,ma,....”)

The Mandarin Chinese Pinyin Table (汉语拼音表)provides the complete list of all Pinyin syllables used in standard Mandarin. An empty cell on the table indicates that the corresponding syllable does not exist in standard Mandarin. The tone variations of the syllable will display on the top of the table after you click on a syllable. Click on the tone variations of a syllable to listen and practice the pronunciation. Not all 4 tones exist for each syllable. The system displays only the tone variations that exist in standard Mandarin.