Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Why Is It So Easy to Rhyme in Mandarin?

2008 August 1 – 6:08 pm | Categories: Pronunciation, Sounds| Leave a comment

Chinese words are made up of so few possible syllables that it’s almost hard NOT to rhyme.  For example, Wang Lihong has a song called “Can you feel my world” that has the following rhyme scheme:

A
A
A
A
A
etc.

Just to clarify, that means that every single line in the whole song rhymes (except for his two token English lines).

What is it about Chinese that makes that possible?  The magic number = 25.

According to the pinyin chart, not every combination of letters in the pinyin alphabet is allowed.  In fact, there are a whole lot of combination that are possible to produce, but simply don’t exist in Mandarin for some reason (like “ki” and “fin,” not to mention all the syllables we could create if we were allowed to put all those initial consonants in final position). This means that, even though there are technically 38 different endings on the chart, there are really only 25 sounds (according to my count) that can be at the end of a syllable.  There may be more depending on “R-ified” endings, but we’ll get to that.

If Dr. Seuss had been Chinese, he would have gotten nowhere.

Different finals in Mandarin (for rhyming):

[update: I'm adding songs that I find that have these endings as the exclusive rhyme scheme (or at least dominant one).  Anyone is welcome to contribute.]

1. a, ia, ua - 妹妹 by 江美琪
2. ai, uai - 不愿说再见 by 王力宏
3. an (ban), uan
4. an (yan), ian, üan
5. ang, iang, uang - 倔强 by 五月天
6. ao, iao - Can You Feel My World by 王力宏
7. e (le)
8. e (ye), ie, üe
9. ei, ui
10. en
11. eng
12. er
13. i (yi / ji)
14. i (zhi)
15. i (zi)
16. in
17. ing
18. ong, iong
19. ou, iu
20. uo, o
21. u (bu) - 凹凸 by 梁咏琪, 休止符 by 孙燕姿 (Stefanie)
22. un (chun)
23. ü (yu)
24. ün (yun)
25. er

(Did I miss any?  Let me know if I miscounted somewhere.)

Who cares?  Well, it’s not always clear from the pinyin that certain words don’t rhyme with each other.  For example, “yan” and “ban” aren’t even close to rhyming.  Also the two syllables in “yìsi” 意思 do not rhyme with each other, but look like they should.

So really, who cares?

1. People who are just starting to learn pinyin. Don’t get tricked by the writing system.  ChinesePod’s pinyin chart (huge, but good) is downloadable here.  (I’d still like to have a totally online clickable one with absolutely every syllable on it.)

2. People who want to write songs or rhyming kids books in a foreign language but haven’t decided which language to use.  The choice is simple: Mandarin Chinese. Isn’t that right, Chris?

3. People who are interested in “érhuà” 儿化 (*eh HEM* Beijing Sounds, *cough) and want to know what those syllables sound like when “R-ified.”

Enough with the innuendos, here’s what I want: recordings of those first 24 syllables “R-ified.”  It doesn’t have to be BJS that does it, but I also want to know if there are any differences between the ends of, for example, “xiar” and “shuar.”  If not, then we may assume that there are only 24 different kinds of “R” endings (at most) that one needs to learn.

If you don’t know what this “R-ification” is all about, you might look at this.

At some point, someone needs to produce a bank of sound files with erhua syllables with different tones.  I think it’s amazing that doesn’t already exist.  Maybe it does and I just don’t know about it.  If so, please let me know so I can recomend MDBG use it to provide pronunciation samples for entries such as “wánr” 玩儿, which currently has no link to a sound file.

• Pinyin Chart
• Beijing Sounds - My Review
• Reductions: Missing Sounds
• Tone Changes
• How Hard Is Chinese to Learn, Really?