Erhua

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Érhuà (儿化) refers to the r-coloring or addition of the "ér"(儿) sound (transcribed in IPA as /ɚ/) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. It is most common in the speeches of North China as a tool of diminution. The Standard Mandarin spoken in government-produced educational and examination recordings features erhua to some extent, as in 哪儿(nǎr), 一点儿(yìdiǎnr), or 好玩儿(hǎowánr), though many Southern Chinese find the sound distasteful and usually avoid these words, replacing them with 哪里(nǎlǐ), 一点(yìdiǎn), or 好玩(hǎowán).

In a small number of words, such as 二 "two", 耳 "ear", etc. All of these words are pronounced as [ɑɚ] with no initial consonant.
As a noun suffix (Traditional: -兒, Simplified: -儿). The suffix combines with the final, and regular but complex changes occur as a result.

The basic rules controlling the surface pronunciation of erhua are as follows:

Coda [i] and [n] are deleted.
Coda [ŋ] is deleted, but the syllable becomes nasalized.
Main vowels [i] and [y] become glides and have a [ə] added, which is rhoticized as [ɚ].
Certain vowels are changed: [a] becomes [ɑ]; [e], [z̩] and [ʐ̩] become [ə]; [ɛ] in the finals [iɛn] and [yɛn] becomes [ɑ] (but it remains in the finals [iɛ] and [yɛ]).

The following chart shows how the finals from the above chart are affected by the addition of this suffix:

Nucleus	Coda (+rhotic)	Medial
Nucleus	Coda (+rhotic)	Ø	i	u	y
a	Ø	ɑɻ	iɑɻ	uɑɻ
	i	ɑɻ		uɑɻ
	u	aʊɻ	iaʊɻ
	n	ɑɻ	iɑɻ	uɑɻ	yɑɻ
	ŋ	ɑ̃ɻ	iɑ̃ɻ	uɑ̃ɻ
ə	Ø	ɤɻ	iɛɻ	uoɻ	yɛɻ
	i	əɻ		uəɻ
	u	ɤʊɻ	iɤʊɻ
	n	əɻ	iəɻ	uəɻ	yəɻ
	ŋ	ɤ̃ɻ	iɤ̃ɻ	ʊ̃ɻ	yʊ̃ɻ
Ø		əɻ	iəɻ	uɻ	yəɻ

The behavior of retroflexed finals provides some evidence for the phonemic analysis of main vowels. The fact that [iɛn] and [yɛn] become [iɑɻ] and [yɑɻ] confirms their analysis as /ian/ and /yan/ (rather than /iən/ and /yən/), and the differing behavior of [z̩]/[ʐ̩] and [i] suggests that these should not be merged (contrary to Pinyin). The behavior of [ə] and [ɤ], however, is problematic, since it suggests that they should not be merged, contrary to most analyses. (An alternative, consistent with retroflex behavior, would be to merge [ə] and [z̩]/[ʐ̩] as a single /ə/ phoneme and maintain [ɤ] as a separate phoneme occurring only in a single /ɤ/ final. Some evidence for this comes from standard Beijing pronunciation, where [ə] and [z̩]/[ʐ̩] are simple vowels but "[ɤ]" is actually a complex diphthong, pronounced approximately as [ɯʌ] -- a combination of the vowels in Standard American "put" and "putt"}}.)