er and er-colored words

“er” is a special final in Chinese Pinyin. When pronouncing it, make “e” sound and then roll your tongue. As a final, “er” can only be a syllable itself, meaning it can’t be together with any initial. In Chinese we just have a few words with it. For example: Click to listen

• èr — two
• érzi — son
• nǚ‘ér — daughter
• ěrduo — ear.

• huār——flower.

• xiǎo niǎor——bird
• xiǎo háir——children
• yì diǎnr——a little
• hǎo wánr——interesting

• nǎ——which, nǎ guó——which country
• nǎr ——where，Nǐ qù nǎr？—— where are you going？
• huà—— to draw, huàr——picture, huà huàr—— to draw a picture.

Usually we use ‘er’ in oral Chinese, especially in Northern China. In the south, people don’t use it very often. In the video, you can see two students talking about going out to a park. The boy from North is using a lot of er-colored words while not for the girl from South.