IPA Chart: Chinese (Traditional) Phonemes
The International Phonetic Alphabet of Chinese (Traditional)
Highlight clickable audio in red
Consonants (Pulmonic)
Most IPA symbols and examples play an audio example when clicked.
| bilabial | labiodental | linguolabial | dental | alveolar | postalveolar | retroflex | palatal | velar | uvular | pharyngeal | glottal | |
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| plosive |
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| sibilant affricate |
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| non-sibilant affricate |
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| sibilant fricative |
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| non-sibilant fricative |
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| approximant |
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| tap/flap |
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| trill |
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| lateral affricate |
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| lateral fricative |
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| lateral approximant |
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| lateral tap/flap |
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Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.
Consonants (Non-Pulmonic)
| Clicks | Voiced implosives | Ejectives | |||
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Bilabial |
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Bilabial | ʼ | Examples: |
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Dental |
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Dental/alveolar |
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Bilabal |
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Post-alveolar |
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Palatal |
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Dental/alveolar |
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Palato-alveolar |
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Velar |
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Velar |
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Alveolar lateral |
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Uvular |
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Alveolar fricative |
Vowels
Front
Central
Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel.
Other Symbols
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Voiceless labial-velar fricative |
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Alveolo-palatal fricatives |
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Voiced labial-velar approximant |
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Alveolar lateral flap | |
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Voiced labial-palatal approximant |
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Simultaneous
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Voiceless epiglottal fricative |
Affricates and double articulations can be represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar if necessary.
◌͡◌
◌͜◌
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| Voiced epiglottal fricative | ||||
| Epiglottal plosive | ||||
Diacritics
Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. ŋ̊
◌̥
Voiceless
◌̤
Breathy voiced
◌̪
Dental
◌̬
Voiced
◌̰
Creaky voiced
◌̺
Apical
○ʰ
Aspirated
◌̼
Linguolabial
◌̻
Laminal
◌̹
More rounded
○ʷ
Labalized
◌̃
Nasalized
◌̜
Less rounded
○ʲ
Palatalized
◌̚
No audible release
◌̟
Advanced
○ˠ
Velarized
○ˡ
Lateral release
◌̠
Retracted
○ˤ
Pharyngealized
○ⁿ
Nasal release
◌̈
Centralized
◌̴
Velarized or pharyngealized
○˭
Tenuis
◌̽
Mid-centralized
◌̝
Raised
◌̩
Syllabic
◌̞
Lowered
◌̯
Non-syllabic
◌̘
Advanced Tongue Root
○˞
Rhoticity
◌̙
Retracted Tongue Root
◌denotes a combining diacritic
○denotes a non-combining diacritic
Tones and Word Accents
| Level | Contour | |||||||||
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or | ˥ | Extra high |
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˦ | High |
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˥˩ | Falling | |||||
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˧ | Mid |
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˦˥ | High rising | |||||
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˨ | Low |
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˩˨ | Low rising | |||||
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˩ | Extra low |
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˧˦˧ | Rising-falling | |||||
| ↓ | Downstep | ↗ | Global rise | |||||||
| ↑ | Upstep | ↘ | Global fall | |||||||
Suprasegmentals
ˈ
Primary stress
ˌ
Secondary stress
ː
Long
ˑ
Half-long
◌̆
Extra short
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Minor (foot) group
‖
Major (intonation) group
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Syllable break
‿
Linking (absence of a break)
Transcriptions
[ ]
Phonetic transcription
/ /
Phonemic transcription
{ }
Prosodic notation
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Indistinguishable utterance
⸨ ⸩
Sound obscured
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