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7.13: Sounds and pinyin

  • Page ID
    89665
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    Tone combos (the last three sets)

    13 14 15
    kāfēi bù nán Táiwān
    fēijī dàxué Chéngdū
    cāntīng shùxué zuótiān

    Initials

    Recall your initials chart, and the complementary distribution of initial and rhymes for rows 3 and 4 on the one hand, and 5 on the other:

    3,4

    -i is never ‘ee’ -u is ‘oo’, never ‘yu’
    zi zhi zu (zun...) zhu (zhun...)
    ci chi cu (cun...) chu (chun...)
    si shi su (sun...) shu (shun...)
    ri   ru (run...)  


    5

    -i is ‘ee only’ -u is ‘yu’ never ‘oo’
    ji (jie, jian...) ju (jue, juan...)
    qi (qie, qian...) qu (que, quan...)
    xi (xie, xian...) xu (xue, xuan...)


    Exercise 11.

    a) Write lines 3, 4, and 5 of your initial chart (z, c, s etc.) on a small sheet of paper, one for every three students. Then, as your teacher recites the list of words twice, determine by consensus which initial is involved: [Samples: xie, chu, xi, qu, su, shu, zhun, jun, xian, ci, shuai, xu, cai, shi, xi, shun etc. ]

    b) By column, read aloud the following sets

    èr sān liù jiǔ shí
    dou zh!uo gou tuo lou po zou sh!uo r!ou mo
    duo zh!ou guo tou luo pou zuo sh!ou r!uo mou

     

    Notice that row-5 initials do not appear in this exercise; why is that?

    c) Practice reading the following sets aloud:

    1) rè > lè > hé > è > kě.
    2) rén > bèn > hěn > gēn > mén.
    3) mèng > lěng > pèng > gèng > fēng.
    4) zhāng > cháng > pàng > tàng > ràng.
    5) hǎo > zhào > pǎo > mǎo > zǎo.
    6) xiè > bié > jiè > tiē > liè.
    7) lèi > bēi > méi > fēi > zéi.
    8) lái > tài > mǎi > pái > zài.

     


    This page titled 7.13: Sounds and pinyin is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Julian K. Wheatley (MIT OpenCourseWare) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.