Standard Chinese
Mandarin (Chinese: 華語), also known as Standard Chinese, is a standardized form of Chinese.
History
Geographic distribution
Phonology
Consonants/initials
Labial | Alveolar | Palatals | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m [m] 摸 | n [n] 挪 | ng [ŋ] 我 | |||
Stop | plain | b [p] 波 | d [t] 多 | g [k] 哥 | [ʔ] 亞 | |
aspirated | p [pʰ] 婆 | t [tʰ] 拖 | k [kʰ] 卡 | |||
Affricative | plain | z [ts] 知 | ||||
aspirated | c [tsʰ] 雌 | |||||
Fricative | f [f] 科 | s [s] 思 | [ʃ] 書 | h [h] 何 | ||
Approximant | l [l] 羅 | j [j] 也 | w [w] 華 |
Vowels/finals
IPA | Oral | Nasal | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
- | -a | -e | -i | -u | -m | -n | -ng | ||
[a] | a | a 呀 | ai 矮 | au 歐 | am 痷 | an 恩 | ang 鶯 | ||
[ɛ~e] | e | e 誒 | ei 非 | em 舐 | eng 鏡 | ||||
[i] | i | i 衣 | ia | ie | iu 妖 | im 淹 | in 煙 | ing 英 | |
[ɔ~o] | o | o 柯 | oi 哀 | ou 奧 | on 安 | ong 康 | |||
[u~ʊ] | u | u 烏 | ua | ui 煨 | un 碗 | ung 甕 | |||
[œ] | eu | eu 靴 | eun 順 | eung 香 | |||||
[y] | iu | iu 於 | iun 冤 |
Finals of Northern Mandarin
Several finals that exist in Northern Mandarin dialects do not exist in Standard Mandarin. They are instead substituted with other finals in order to read certain characters.
Original final | Replacement | |
---|---|---|
喬 | iao | iu |
僉 | ian | im |
彊 | iang | eung |
匔 | iong | ung, eng |
鎈 | uo | o, iu |
膗 | uai | oi, ai, a |
汆 | uan | iun |
刅 | uang | ong |
傳 | üan | eung |