How useful is zhuyin / 'bopomofo'? How to use it?

[Shi Tong]

Chinese syllables have been thought of as initials and finals since at least Middle Chinese. Even though Zhuyin Fuhao might appear to break the finals into smaller parts, it is ultimately a system of notating initials and finals, just like Hanyu Pinyin. That they use ㄩ in the final that rhymes with 用 implies that at the time when Zhuyin Fuhao was created, many pronounced it like /yʊŋ/.

That's a very good point Hoffman.

The thing I've noticed about zhuyin is that it kind of uses initials, finals and what I personally like to terms "middles", which are sounds which can go at the front, end or middle of a word. This includes most of the finals, but none of the initials, but one of those is ㄩ, so ㄩ can go at the start of some words.

I would be very interested to hear how this is pronounced in nanjing also to see if there's the same discrepency.

[AdamD]

Having last week passed my phone to a twenty-something Taiwanese woman who couldn't use any keyboard except bopomofo, I've decided that's reason enough to learn it.

 

The first thing that jumped out at me was that the relationship between pinyin and zhuyin is not 1:1. The character 龙/龍 is a good example because the pinyin is lóng and the zhuyin is ㄌㄨㄥˊ (or I suppose lueng2). They don't map neatly at all. I expect the differences will draw my attention to finer nuances in pronunciation, which would be fantastic.

 

I was going to start learning 繁体 soon anyway, so my intention is to type all 简体 using only pinyin and all 繁体 using only zhuyin.

[Hofmann]

Whether you use Pinyin or Zhuyin, they're both systems for notating initials and finals. Pinyin "ong" and Zhuyin "ㄨㄥ" both mean /ʊŋ/. One shouldn't try to analyze them as phonetic notations having a 1:1 correspondence with phonemes.

[MeiMay]

I think Pinyin is better suited for people who already know Mandarin sounds and which sounds can and cannot go with which other sounds (native speakers) and Zhuyin is better suited for people who don't know the sounds of Mandarin. I think Zhuyin is the better system for any non Chinese person studying Chinese. For a native speaker it doesn't matter, any system will work.

Pinyin is a very ambiguous system. Zhuyin is unambiguous.

Examples:

Pinyin si, ji, qi, all use "i", ambiguous: which sound?

Pinyin uses "e" in e (hungry), he (and), wen (ask), shei (who), ye (also) ambiguous: which sound?

Zhuyin uses ㄧ for jㄧ and qㄧ, ㄓ for sㄓ : unambiguous and clear, you always know which sound to use.

Zhuyin uses ㄛ for ㄛ, hㄛ, ㄝ for wㄝn and yㄝ, and ㄟ for "ei" in shei: combletely unambiguous and clear

AdamD: no ambiguity. ㄨㄥ is used to represent either ong or ueng. As lueng is not possible in Mandarin, the only option is long.

Zhuyin also cannot be confused with sounds in Western languages because it bears no resemblance to the scripts used to write those languages.

Someone tried to claim it's easy to confused Zhuyin characters, I don't see it. None of them look similar enough to each other to be easily confused.

Politics and official recommendations aside, it's clear that Zhuyin is the best system for non-Chinese learners of Mandarin.

Also to the idea of a system like this being necessary: I learned some characters as a child together with the meanings and the sounds, for example 愛 (I learned the traditional form first, when I learned the simplified form many years later I thought it was sad they removed the heart from love). I learned the Chinese characters, their meanings and how to pronounce them, that's it. No pinyin, no Zhuyi. To this day I remember those characters. I saw the pinyin for them years later and it did nothing to help me remember the characters as I learned them completely removed from Pinyin. Pinyin and Zhuyin are tools that make remembering and learning easier if you use them correctly. Necessary they are not.

[renzhe]

This topic has been beaten to death, but I simply had to point this out:

Pinyin si, ji, qi, all use "i", ambiguous: which sound?

AdamD: no ambiguity. ㄨㄥ is used to represent either ong or ueng. As lueng is not possible in Mandarin, the only option is long.

You answered your own question there.

And the question why "ei" is different from "e" is not difficult either. One is "ei" and the other one is "e"

[Sharon喵喵]

Zhuyin is very useful when you learn pronunciation, if you know the zhuyin alphabet, then you can read the words. Zhuyin alphabet is necessary, I think. I'm a Chinese, when I learned how to read books, I learned zhuyin alphabet first, and then I can read the books with zhuyin, later I can remember the pronunciation. You can write the zhuyin of new words in order to remember the pronunciation, after you remember the pronunciation, you don't need to write the them.   

[MeiMay]

Okay, let's not make this any longer then, but one final consideration: Pinyin has more of these "not possible so it must be" situations than Zhuyin. Less possible ambiguity to someone totally ignorant of Mandarin sounds (the ong case is the only one I can see in Zhuyin) the better. Of course everyone should learn the sounds and understand the sound structure of the language but I think for a total beginner Zhuyin is far less ambiguous. Pinyin is rife with such ambiguities, especially Pinyin that doesn't make the u/ü distinction. Zhuyin does: ㄨ/ㄩ so in Zhuyin you don't have to know which sound to pronounce after j q s sh because the correct sound is always written out. Both are good systems, I just explained why I think Zhuyin is better for someone ignorant of Mandarin sounds, at least in the beginning. I'm sure both systems will work just fine if you make the effort of learning them.

[Lu]

MeiMay: if Zhuyin is so consistent, then explain to me that if 用 is ㄧㄨㄥ, then why 雄 is not ㄒㄧㄨㄥ.

For the rest of your questions, see the rest of the thread. I remember they are covered very extensively.

Sharon: I'm surprised that you learned Zhuyin on the mainland, I always thought it was only used in Taiwan.

[Hofmann]

Lu, 雄 is pronounced /ɕɥɤŋ˧˥/.

[Demonic_Duck]

if 用 is ㄧㄨㄥ...

 

www.baidu.com/s?wd=用的注音

[ParkeNYU]

As a native English speaker, I naturally prefer MPS/Zhuyin/Bopomofo over Romanisation. My mind simply harbours too much phonetic bias in the realm of Latin letters, whilst MPS is fresh and language-specific. Considering all of the European languages that utilise the Roman script, each letter is far too conflated with divergent phonetic values to be practical for Mandarin recitation. With only 42 symbols (including tone marks), this script is even easier to learn than Japanese Kana. The Cantonese version that I had developed also has only 42 symbols, so its benefits are not limited to one Chinese language.

[hedwards]

I think that both systems have their place. I can't claim to know anything at all about Zhuyin, but when I look back to when I knew no Pinyin, I had an immediate leg up as the letters were meaningful to me. And I suspect that to an extent anybody that comes from a country using a similar alphabet is going to see a similar boost to learning it. I already had some familiarity with German and Latin in addition to English, so a great deal of the letters already approximated sounds that I knew how to produce, so I just had to learn adjustments rather than trying to figure out how to pronounce a completely new symbol from scratch and then remember it.

 

I'd be very curious to know the thoughts of somebody coming from someplace where the written language doesn't use the same alphabet to see what they think about that.

 

I also think that if your concern is pronunciation, that's really what the IPA is for. Pinyin does do a pretty good job of conveying the sounds, but just like German, depending upon whom you're listening to, the pronunciation can be a bit different even though on paper the script is largely phonetic in nature. Which is pretty much inevitable with a language that's spoken over a large area. And in the case of Mandarin, is effectively a mandatory second language for many people and for many of whom they won't be using it regularly once they leave school.

 

BTW, I think a more useful discussion would probably be why English has such a terrible method of writing. I might be a bit odd, but at least the characters of Chinese are rather honest. If I can't write something in Chinese I generally know before I try, but with English, who knows if I'm spelling things correctly.

[ParkeNYU]

English spelling is a clusterfuck of Germanic, Celtic, French, Greek, Latin, and other Romantic orthographies. If we were to use a phonemic alphabet, our texts would be rife with homophones. If we were to use a phonetic alphabet, we'd have countless disagreements among a number of dialects (primarily between General American and Received Pronunciation). Words spelt in English are similar to Chinese characters, in that they are ultimately stored and retrieved as whole units (rather than clusters of phonemes that are reanalysed with each reading).

 

As far as Pinyin and Zhuyin are concerned, Pinyin indeed has a graphical advantage over Zhuyin for native users of the Latin script, simply because these users are already intimately familiar with the glyphs. However, it is precisely this advantage that results in a phonetic disadvantage. These users will have already spent their formative years assigning specific sounds to these glyphs and internalising these assignments (the instinct is difficult to break). Although Zhuyin symbols undoubtedly require more effort to learn due to their unfamiliarity, the phonetic (and phonemic) benefits are impossible to ignore, since each new shape will be assigned to a new sound. Because the Zhuyin symbols themselves are derived from Chinese radicals and other character-components, learning the new shapes actually serves as convenient preparation for learning Chinese characters. Considering the thousands of complex characters that a student is ultimately expected to learn, an extra 42 simple ones adds a laughably minuscule burden.

[OneEye]

I've never bought into the idea that pinyin somehow impedes the development of good pronunciation while zhuyin encourages it. Either way, you still have to learn the sounds. You then assign a symbol to the sound, whether it's from the Latin alphabet or zhuyin or whatever else. You seem to be thinking about it the other way around, which I think is what's giving you trouble. Speech/sound first, then notation. If you can pronounce 'qi' correctly and then learn it's written 'qi', you're not going to start pronouncing it 'kwee' or 'kee' or something just because it's written with a q. Listen, listen, listen, and imitate, imitate, imitate. You don't learn pronunciation with your eyes.

[hedwards]

Parke, anybody that makes mistakes about pronunciation due to the letters being used is going to make similar mistakes no matter what glyphs are used. That's just a matter of sloth more than anything else. There is an added benefit that comes from being able to easily remember letters due to the familiarity and practice.

 

That being said, I think it's going to be a relatively minor advantage that might save you a couple of days out of the many years it takes to really master the language. And I certainly wouldn't suggest that should be the basis for choosing one over the other as other factors will be more important.

 

However, for people who use those letters enough to become familiar with them, there is going to be experience figuring out how to work with them and memorize them that won't exist for unfamiliar glyphs.

[AdamD]

ParkeNYU, I like your thought processes and intentions here, but I'm not convinced that 注音 is the way to go for learners like us.

 

learning the new shapes actually serves as convenient preparation for learning Chinese characters. Considering the thousands of complex characters that a student is ultimately expected to learn, an extra 42 simple ones adds a laughably minuscule burden.

 

Four reasons I disagree:

 

1. Learning Chinese characters is itself preparation for learning Chinese characters. People generally learn 角、 刀 and 牛 before they learn 解。

 

2. The process of remembering 42 注音 is entirely different from the process of learning hundreds of complex characters, because 注音 is associated purely with sound, not meaning.

 

3. Seeing Chinese characters all the time is what reinforces them. You really don't see 注音 very often at all, just as you rarely see 拼音 once you hit intermediate level.

 

4. 拼音 is essentially training wheels. If you force learners like us to learn 注音, you're making the training wheels themselves a goal to achieve. And I'm telling you now, people would find the romanisation of every 注音 and learn them all that way, just as I did last year (e.g. ㄢ is 'an', ㄥ is 'eng')—that's a step that doesn't need to be there.

 

Honestly, your argument could be repurposed and wrangled into the classic "why doesn't China just drop characters altogether?", which hasn't happened for very similar reasons: they're an integral part of the language now, and moving away from them would take immense effort and generational change.

 

Do you know why Esperanto never took off? Because it didn't need to.

 

Pinyin indeed has a graphical advantage over Zhuyin for native users of the Latin script, simply because these users are already intimately familiar with the glyphs. However, it is precisely this advantage that results in a phonetic disadvantage. These users will have already spent their formative years assigning specific sounds to these glyphs and internalising these assignments (the instinct is difficult to break).

 

I agree with this. Pinyin can result in weird mispronunciations by people who never took the time to learn pinyin properly.

[ParkeNYU]

if Zhuyin is so consistent, then explain to me that if 用 is ㄧㄨㄥ, then why 雄 is not ㄒㄧㄨㄥ.

 

First of all, 用 is written as ㄩㄥ.

 

Second of all, ㄒㄧㄨㄥ exceeds the three-symbol maximum limit (not including the tone mark).

 

Third of all, the symbol ㄩ, in addition to representing '(y)u/ü', serves as a necessary shorthand for 'yo/io' when followed by the coda 'ng' (so as to stay within the maximum syllable length). This is because the theoretical syllable /(ɥ)yŋ/ does not exist in Mandarin, and thus there is no conflict. The shorthand use of ㄩ is also intuitive, albeit abstractly; Zhuyin's Romanised sister script, Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, renders Pinyin's 'yo/io' as 'yu/iu' before the coda 'ng', and since 'yu/iu' is otherwise used to represent /(ɥ)y/ (as in 魚), the equivalent symbol ㄩ may be adopted in place of ㄧㄨ by analogy. Lastly, it is syntactically incorrect to have more than one medial symbol (ㄧㄨㄩ) within the same syllable.

[hedwards]

@Adam, that was certainly my experience with the characters. I looked at a ton of them and then I started to notice what I now understand to be functional components. I first started to realize then when I was memorizing radicals. In retrospect probably not the most effective use of my time, but probably a better use of my time than the methods that I knew about for memorizing characters.

 

As far as Esperanto goes, it's one of those good ideas that failed in large part because other languages had such a massive lead. It's still useful to study for a few weeks and at some point I'll memorize the common words, but since it has such a small population that can actively use it, it just doesn't get the kind of attention necessary to be taken seriously. Languages live in part due to popularity.

[ParkeNYU]

@OneEye

 

You are correct; I do prefer to learn the phonetic symbols of a language simultaneously with its phonology, rather than mastering the sounds and then learning how to write them. I am a predominantly visual learner, so when I utter a sound during a practice session, I want a corresponding visual shape to appear in my mind to help me remember it. Not all students learn this way, but many do, so I believe that the option should be available to them. Those who prefer Pinyin should by all means embrace it, but it shouldn't be the only option available.

 

@hedwards

 

To an extent, you can assign nonsense letters to a given phoneme and still remember it (for example, learning that the sound 'qi' is written as 'rb'). Obviously, that is an extreme example, but the point remains with a difference of degree. Pinyin uses many unintuitive shorthand conventions that are not used in Zhuyin (I explained one of Zhuyin's very few shorthand conventions in my last post); for example: 'iu' as 'i'+'ou', 'ui' as 'u'+'ei', and the multiple sounds assigned to all five vowel letters 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', and 'u' depending on the neighboring letters. In short, Pinyin has far more rules than does Zhuyin. Like you said, a determined student can still learn these conventions without excessive trouble, but it is nonetheless an advantage that Zhuyin holds over Pinyin. In the end, there are tradeoffs, and I don't agree that Zhuyin's shortcomings outweigh Pinyin's; they are merely different in nature.

 

@AdamD

 

1) Yes, that's certainly true, but it doesn't conflict with my point. Preparation is preparation – the more the better.

 

2) Yes, and this makes learning Zhuyin even easier.

 

3) Yes, and it's a shame. I have to actively seek material that offers Zhuyin phonetic annotation.

 

4) Yes, Zhuyin and Pinyin both act as training wheels to assist in the study of Chinese characters, which I hope will never be replaced by a phonetic system. However, it is up to the student whether s/he will learn Zhuyin the optimum way (look, listen, pronounce), or otherwise engage in the pointless and wasteful task of learning Pinyin as a means of learning Zhuyin (unless the desire is to learn both for their own sakes).

[ParkeNYU]

I looked at a ton of them and then I started to notice what I now understand to be functional components. I first started to realize then when I was memorizing radicals. In retrospect probably not the most effective use of my time, but probably a better use of my time than the methods that I knew about for memorizing characters.

 

I usually recommend that students learn the 214 Kangxi Radicals before any other characters, but then I discovered this website/program called "The ABCs of Chinese", which has meaningfully distilled even more components. In my opinion, the rote memorisation and writing repetition methods, when not coupled with the study of radicals and components, are brute force and primitive; to understand a character's anatomy only as a specific sequence of strokes is to not understand it at all.