List of all initial consonants in MTL

The 18 initial consonants in the MTL system are: p, ph, m, b, t, th, n, l, k, kh, h, g, c, ch, s, j, z, zh.

The initial consonants of MTL

File:Initial consonants slow.mp3

The consonants (slower)

MTL	Approx.	Example	Meaning
p	spin	papaf	father
ph	pin	phaq	to hit
m	Mimi	mi	noodle
b	mumble	baq	meat
t	stem	tit	straight
th	Thomas	theh	to take
n	neat	nii	year
l	lima	laang	person
k	ski	kaf	to add
kh	key	khix	to go
h	heap	hii	fish
g	gaggle	go	five
c(i)	gee	ciaf	here
ch(i)	cheese	chiaf	car
s	she / saw	si	is; yes
j	vision / zeta	jit	sun; day
z	yards	zef	this
zh	Tsai (Ts'ai)	zhaix	vegetable

Note: s and j are slightly different when followed by an i vs other vowels.

Frequency

Ordered by frequency across the headwords of the MoeDict, they are: k, s, <none>, t, h, l, p, z, kh, b, th, zh, c, g, ch, ph, j, m, n. K appears nearly 4,300 times, whereas n only 374 times.

See also

• List of all finals in MTL
• Frequently-used Taiwanese monosyllables
• Frequently-Used Syllables in Frequently-Used Words