What's the right way to pronounce ün and üan compound finals?

[colcode]

I've tried multiple sources to learn how to pronounce these compound finals, but each source uses different pronunciation. I know that sometimes multiple pronunciations are all valid for a certain syllable, but as a beginner, I wouldn't know if that's the case or that the source has bad pronunciation.

 

üan

 

1) is that "a" similar to the "a" in pinyin "yan" or it's the IPA [a] ? if both cases are valid pronunciations, which one is more popular or considered to be more standard?

 

2) from "Integrated Chinese" tapes, they pronounce üan as "you wan", they pronounce it as English speakers do when they pronounce the Chinese currency Yuan. On other sources, they pronounce it as [ɥan]/[ɥɛn], something like "ü+ yan", (semivowel y sound). Which pronunciation is more accurate/standard?

 

ün

 

1) All sources that I used transcribe ün as [yn], as someone who is already familiar with French, they transcribe it similar to the French word "une" [yn], but the French "une" and Chinese "ün" sound completely different. So what's the right way to transcribe ün in IPA?

 

2) Some sources state that there is an [e] sound between "ü" and "n", so ün should be pronounced as ü+en, with the [e] sound being quick/subtle. is this pronunciation correct?

 

 

 

 

 

[abcdefg]

Examples?

[mungouk]

Assuming you're more interested in pronunciation rather than IPA representation, this isn't a bad place to start — includes native speaker audio.  

 

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/Main_Page

 

As a relative beginner I've noticed a bit of variation with what I'm hearing in some of the vowels though, including ün.  Which at times to me (as a native English speaker who also knows French) sounds like it has a bit of "i" in it. For example 结婚。

[Luxi]

On 9/6/2018 at 1:51 PM, colcode said:

2) Some sources state that there is an [e] sound between "ü" and "n", so ün should be pronounced as ü+en, with the [e] sound being quick/subtle. is this pronunciation correct?

 

Yes, it is correct according to the official putonghua specifications. The e is really short but it makes a big difference.

[edelweis]

On 9/6/2018 at 3:59 PM, mungouk said:

including ün.  Which at times to me (as a native English speaker who also knows French) sounds like it has a bit of "i" in it. For example 结婚

but there's no ün final in 结婚 (?)

 

 

[mungouk]

@edelweis thanks for picking that up.

 

I can't actually remember what I was trying to say 7 months ago.

 

 

[li3wei1]

Important to realise that juan, quan, and xuan are really jüan, qüan, and xüan, but the umlauts are left out because their presence can be assumed. So chuan and quan have completely different final sounds, despite having identical final spellings.