Ningbonese Vowels

Wu Chinese exhibits several features which Mandarin doesn’t have -- rounded front vowels (like German schön) and nasal vowels (like French bon). Let's take a look!

Firstly, there are the basic simple vowel sounds found in most languages:

	IPA	Example	English
a	a	买 ma	buy
e	e	海 he	sea
ae	ɛ	蛋 dae	egg
i	i	天 thi	heaven
o	o	沙 so	sand
u	u	古 ku	ancient

It's worth noting that the "o" is fairly close to "u". There are also some straightforward diphthongs:

ei	ɐi	对 tei	correct
ua	ua	快 khua	fast
ia	ia	爹 tia	dad
io	io	小 shio	small

There is also the very short vowel which is also found in the Mandarin reading of words like 子, 次, or 四. And in Ningbo Dialect there is also rounded version of this vowel, found in some words like 水:

y	ɿ	四 sy	four
yu	ʮ	水 syu	water

Two vowels which may be easy to confuse are the vowels in 好 and 火; the vowel in 好 is just the open-mid back rounded vowel ɔ, whereas the vowel in 火 sounds more like the sound in house.

au	ɔ	好 hau	good
ou	əu	火 hou	fire

The vowels in Ningbo Dialect which involve rounding are:

iu	y	区 chiu	district
eu	œʏ	头 deu	head
ieu	iʏ	手 shieu	hand
oe	ø	短 toe	short

A subset of the vowels can be followed by a nasal consonant -- unlike Mandarin, there is no distinction between front (alveolar) and back (velar) nasal sounds. Note, that for some people oen may rhyme with on.

on	oŋ	东 ton	east
en	əŋ	村 tsen	village
oen	øŋ	春 tshoen	spring
in	iŋ	冰 pin	ice

For two of the vowels, instead of being followed by nasal consonants, the vowels themselves can become nasalized! Note that in the Wu Chinese Association's romanization system, these are also spelled with an "n"; there is no ambiguity because for each type of vowel it can either be nasalized or followed by a nasal consonant.

an	ã	生 san	birth
aon	ɔ̃	汤 thaon	soup

Finally: Wu Chinese preserves the "checked tone" of Old Chinese, where syllables can end with stop consonants. The only stop consonant that words can end with is the glottal stop (ʔ).

ah	aʔ	法 fah	law
oeh	øʔ	雪 soeh	snow
ih	iʔ	笔 pih	pen
oh	oʔ	木 moh	wood
iueh	yəʔ	月 yueh	moon
ioh	yoʔ	吃 chioh	eat

Primary source: the Wu Chinese Association website and this post on Baidu Tieba.