an en ang eng ong

  • Chinese nasal finals, also known as nasal codas or nasal endings, are a type of final sound characterized by the presence of a nasal consonant. 
  • In Mandarin Chinese, there are three nasal finals: -an, -ang, and -en. 
  • These finals are formed by combining the nasal consonants (m, n, or ng) with the corresponding vowel sounds.

“an” has the sound of “ahn”, between the “an” in “can” and the “on” in “con”.

“en” sounds like “un” as in “run”, as in “en” in “chicken”.

“ang” sounds like “ahng”, with “a” as in “father” and “ng” as in “song”. (It starts with the vowel sound in father and ends in the velar nasal, similar to song in some dialects of American English.)

“eng” has the sound of “ung” as in “hung” and “lung”.

  • “ong” starts with the vowel sound in “book” and ends with the velar nasal sound in “sing”. 
  • It varies between [oŋ] and [uŋ] depending on the speaker.