LingoDrop
Chinese · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "眼睛" in Chinese?
yen-jing: a low sagging first syllable with a tight "eh", then a weak toneless second with a back nasal.
yǎnjing
Dip then nothing. The neutral suffix insulates yǎn from anything to the right, so it keeps its full descent regardless of what follows the word. The nasal contrast inside the compound is a useful self-check: the first syllable closes at the teeth ridge, the second at the back of the mouth.
Listen: 眼睛
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
她的眼睛很大。
Tā de yǎnjing hěn dà.
She has big eyes.
Listen: 她的眼睛很大。
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她的眼睛很大。 keeps hěn at a full dip before the falling dà. So the sentence contains two dipping tones, yǎn and hěn, and neither converts — the toneless jing sits between them and blocks any adjacency. That blocking effect is one of the most useful things a neutral syllable does.
Where English speakers slip
That -ian ending in yǎn opens out to "yahn" for most learners when it should be a tight "eh". On the second syllable, restoring a level tone gives yǎn jīng, which sounds over-enunciated, and aspirating the j gives qing. And the two nasals get merged, so both syllables end up rhyming when they should not.