Tâigí Phonics 3 - Single Vowels

In this video, you will learn the 6 single vowel sounds in Taiwanese.

a, e, i, o, o͘, u

Note that a, e, i, and u are similar to what you might expect in a variety of European languages like French or German. The o and o͘ can be confusing. I use the more common and widely understood accent, similar to what is spoken in Tainan.

In the Tainan accent: ‘o’ is pronounced /ə/
In some regional accents: ‘o’ is pronounced /o/
The letter o͘ is generally pronounced /ɔ/

Note that there are some exceptions which I call "short" vowel sounds in the video. In general, we use the standard vowel sounds as above. The following letter combinations are exceptions:

ek, eng
ip, it
ok, ong
un, ut

Here are the example words used for each sound:

sa-·lâi (bring it here)
Se-hong (the West)
si-jîn (poet)
so-thâu (to comfort)
so͘-piáⁿ (pastry)
su-iâⁿ (win or lose, outcome)

seⁿ-kiáⁿ (to have a child)
n̂g-sek (yellow)
seng (first)

hî (fish)
hip-siòng (to take a photo)
hit-ê (that one)

chhài-to (kitchen knife)
toh-á (table)
a-tok-á (foreigner, usually caucasian)
Pîn-tong (Pingtung)

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