Mandarin Chinese Initials and Finals

In speech, Chinese words are created using just 21 beginning sounds called initials, and 37 ending sounds called finals. Initials and finals, of course, combine to create the basic sounds of Chinese.

For example, consider Beijing:

bei: b is an initial, and ei is a final.
jing: j is an initial, and ing is a final.

Bear in mind, however, that not all combinations of initials and finals are possible. As well, some finals may stand alone without an initial, such as an and ai. In many of these cases, pinyin rules will add "placeholder" initial consonants, so that "un" becomes "yun," and "u" becomes "wu." Strictly speaking, however, "y" and "w" are not initials.

NOTE

Occasionally when someone hears a Chinese speaker say the city name "Beijing," they ask why it doesn't sound like the news anchors say it. That's because the media in the English-speaking world typically gets it wrong (along with most other Asian place and proper names).

The sound "jing" does not begin like the French sound in Je, or in the name Zsa Zsa.

The 'ji-" in "jing" is closer to "Gee," as in, "Gee, these are major networks with lots of money. You'd think they could be bothered to get it right."

If you don't have time for the complete tables of Mandarin initials and finals right now, the following table gives you some examples using just six of each.

	a	ei	ong	ia	iong	uan
b	ba	bei
d	da	dei	dong
zh	zha		zhong			zhuan
r			rong			ruan
j				jia	jiong
g	ga	gei	gong			guan

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