The yan sound

huasen
 April 17, 2010, 02:14 PM posted in I Have a Question

I'm confused about the sound written as 'yan' as in 眼睛。According to this page http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/15 the sound üan is written 'yan' and is pronounced more like the English 'yen'. But the pinyin chart makes it look as if the pinyin written as 'yan' is the 'ian' sound pronnounced 'eean', whereas the üan sound is written 'yuan'.

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changye
 April 17, 2010, 02:32 PM

> When üan forms a syllable all by itself, it is written yan (but sounds more like the English word "yen").

It's a typo. It should be "ian".

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changye
 April 17, 2010, 02:41 PM

FYI, here is the best explanation of pinyin I ever seen, "Pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese" in John's blog "Sinosplice".

http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/pronunciation-of-mandarin-chinese/2

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huasen
 April 22, 2010, 05:43 PM

Thanks changye, that explains one part - the pinyin was written incorrectly. Still curious about the sound though. The sound file sounds much more like 'eeean' to me than 'yen'. I know some people pronounce it more like 'yen', but my Chinese teacher, who's from Hunan but lives in Beijing, says that's a Southern thing rather than a part of standard pronounciation.