Initial consonants and finals

7 Initials: z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r

For z c s you should let the tip of the tongue touch the back of the lower teeth.

for zh ch sh r you roll up the tip of your tongue close to your hard palate.

Please pay attention to the initial ri, which is easy be confused with the letter r in English. For example the English word ran and the Chinese word ran, in English when pronouncing ran the shape of your mouth is round at the beginning, but in Chinese, your mouth is a little bit stretched.

18 Finals:

ou iou (iu)

an ian uan üan

en in uen (un) ün

ang iang uang

eng ing ueng

ong iong

Do you still remember the final “uei(ui)”in week 1? When it is in a syllable the middle letter is omitted. iou(iu) and un(uen) share the same rule, when in “iou” is written as ”iu”; “uen”, is written as ”un”.