pronouncekit

FINAL

üe üan ün: finals that start with ü

Learn xué, yuán and jūn, the finals built on ü. See why j, q, x and y hide the dots, and how üan is pronounced.

üe üan ün

Mouth & tongue

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Vocal folds: vibrating

TongueTeethUvula

Simplified human pronunciation. The small uvula hangs from the palate; it is not the vocal folds. The wave indicates voicing.

Sound to demonstrate
Tone

High and level, around 55 on the five-level pitch scale.

Voice settings

The mouth starts slightly open. Movement is slowed for observation; the synthetic sound plays once at its original speed. Pause holds the current mouth shape; reset returns to the relaxed position. The panda is a symbolic teaching aid for human pronunciation, not animal anatomy. A simplified teaching model, not a measured or anatomically validated simulation. It shows the soft palate lowering for nasal sounds, but not airflow. Single syllables use eSpeak NG, a synthetic voice on your device. Its pitch range is narrower than natural speech, so use the tone diagrams and word buttons as well. Words and sentences use a voice from your browser or device when one is available. No native recordings are bundled.

Words to practice

Sentence to practice

Listen and compare

Tongue forward with rounded lips for the first word; spread for the second.

Pinyin here shows dictionary tones. Spoken tones change in some contexts, such as nǐ hǎo; see the lessons on tone changes.

What you are learning

These three finals keep the lips rounded and the tongue forward from the start. Written after j, q, x and y they look like ue, uan and un.

What your mouth is doing

Start with the shape of ü. In üe the tongue lowers to something like the e of bed, unrounding as it goes. In üan the vowel moves toward a similar front vowel before the tongue tip rises. In ün it goes straight to n.

Compared with English

English has no ü, so build these from it. Xué is not “shoe-eh”: there is no back u at the start. Pinyin yuán is closer to “ü-en” than to English “you-an” for many Mainland speakers.

Build the sound, step by step

  1. Say yǔ, holding your lips round and your tongue forward.
  2. Open into the e of yuè.
  3. Say xuéxí, yuán and jūn, keeping your tongue forward throughout.

What to watch for

  • Reading juan as if it had a true u. After j, q and x it is always ü.
  • Letting the tongue slide back at the start makes “shway” out of xué.

Related lessons

Keep practicing

References & editorial notes

PronounceKit wrote this lesson as practical guidance for English speakers, based on the references below. The comparisons are editorial teaching suggestions. It describes common Mainland Standard Mandarin patterns, not every accent or regional variety, and it has not been independently reviewed by a pronunciation specialist or Mandarin teacher.

Published 5 November 2026