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2025-08-13 Zhuyin exceptions (special cases)

Sep 12, 20252 min read

Zhuyin 注音符號 (bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) is not a perfect phonetic system, it comes with many exceptions and special cases, where symbols are pronounced differently depending on context:

  • ㄢ an after medials ㄧ and ㄩ it becomes ɛn
    • ㄧㄢ i̯ɛn 顏
    • ㄩㄢ y̯ɛn 元
  • ㄛ o after ㄅㄆㄇㄈ becomes uo
    • ㄅㄛ buo 伯
  • ㄣ ən after ㄧ and ㄩ becomes simpler n sound
    • ㄧㄣ is pronounced in 音
    • ㄩㄣ has very strange pronunciation yn 運 it’s hard to pin it down exactly what it is
  • ㄥ ɤŋ after medials ㄧㄨ and ㄩ has many variants:
    • ㄧㄥ is pronounced iŋ 影
    • ㄨㄥ is pronounced ʊŋ when it follows an initial, example: 中
      • but ㄨㄥ u̯ɤŋ when it’s alone 嗡
    • ㄩㄥ is pronounced i̯ʊŋ 用
  • ㄩ as you saw above has different pronunciations y, y̯ and i̯ depending on context

Source: Bopomofo - Wikipedia

However, zhuyin tried to be precise by separating ㄝ and ㄜ, even though they didn’t have to do that (uses are complimentary, single symbol would have sufficed). One can argue for other inconsistencies that they wanted to be economical with their use of symbols, but then we don’t need ㄝ and ㄜ if we want to be economical.

Given than pinyin is not only looking out for economy of symbols, perhaps we could use two more finals for ɛn and ʊŋ, at least.

chinese-languagezhuyin