Pronouncing the Pinyin Alphabet

[Altair]

How does one pronounce the letters in the Pinyin alphabet? I often come across letter abreviations mixed in with characters, but never see a transcription. Since I have no teacher, I have never known how to pronounce the letters in Chinese. Can anyone help with this?

[Quest]

http://ml.hss.cmu.edu/courses/suemei/82-131/pinyinF.htm

excuse the speaker's english accent though

[zh-laoshi]

[smithsgj]

Don't understand the two responses??

Altair, I think the same as English ('c' is pronounced "she" in Taiwan, and 'g' "ju", but I think these are just attempts to pronounce the English name). Oh and 'l' is always 'ello!

Where I live, the blocks have letters and numbers. The first block is called A one, the second A two, 3rd A san, 4th A si. Presumably cos in Chinese A yi would be too ambiguous? This is the way even old people who know zero English refer to the block numbers.

[Quest]

Don't understand the two responses??

Pinyin Alphabet -- A O E I U U: BO PO MO FO DE TE LE NE GE KE HE JI QI XI ZI CI SI ZHI CHI SHI RI YI WU

What don't you understand?

If he meant pronouncing English abrreviations then yes it would be the same as the English alphabet, with a chinese accent; most obviously with "x" ai ke si, kinda funny too and "n" - eng.

[shibo77]

This is what I learnt in 1st Grade, it is the Chinese names for the Hanyu Pinyin lettres:

A a

B be

C ce

D de

E e

F ef

G ge

H ha

I i

J jie

K ke

L el

M em

N ne

O o

P pe

Q qiou

R ar

S es

T te

U u

V ve

W ua

X xi

Y ia

Z ze

Or you can say it with the old order:

A ā O ō E ē I yī U wū Ü yǖ << (this is an impossible combination, but it's still said this way)

B be P pe M me F fe (V ve)

D de T te N ne (NG ng) L le

G ge K ke (GN geng) H he

J ji Q qi X xi

ZH zhi CH ch SH sh R ri

Z zi C ci S si

(RARELY USED)

Their IPA values:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mandarin_pts.htm

I hope this helped!

- Shibo

[smithsgj]

> I often come across letter abreviations mixed in with characters

在台灣LV的皮包很流行

I took it that was the sort of thing he meant. The letters are pronounced in English. In Taiwan, it's not just "with a Chinese accent", the incorrect pronunciations of L, C and G are deliberately taught at school. G, for example, could readily be taught as 幾, but everyone pronounces it as 據.

I don't get Shibo's pronunciation guide at all. The pronunciations ce for C and xi for X. Are these letters supposed to be pronounced 測 and 西 ? What about all the others that don't even use legal Pinyin combinations?

The bpmf learning paradigm has nothing to do with it, I think. We're talking about the names of letters, not the phonotactics of Mandarin!

[ala]

Yeah that's what I learned too. And then English courses came about, and screwed all of us up. Now we just say the English alphabet with a deliberate accent (it's hilarious since I know how to pronounce the letters correctly in English, but when I'm speaking Mandarin, I have a deliberate Mandarin way of saying them; when I'm speaking Shanghainese, I have a Shanghainese way of saying them. It's pretty unconscious too).

The original pronounciations of the pinyin letters (including v) that never sort of took off bc of English:

A a

B be

C ce

D de

E e

F ef

G ge

H ha

I i

J jie

K ke

L el

M em

N ne

O o

P pe

Q qiou

R ar

S es

T te

U u

V ve

W ua

X xi

Y ia

Z ze

[smithsgj]

Yes Ala that's what Shibo posted. But *how* are they pronounced? According to what system??

[ala]

bopomofo in letters. Or rather, pinyin representing sounds outside of standard Mandarin words.. (although the phonemes can be pronounced as they exist in standard Mandarin). be != pinyin be, but the e in bie. It's really similar to French or Spanish alphabet names. This is also why bopomofo is superior to pinyin, bc pinyin has way too many functions assigned to each letter.

ㄚ

ㄅㄝ

ㄘㄝ

ㄉㄝ

ㄜ

ㄝㄈ

ㄍㄝ

ㄏㄚ

｜

ㄐ｜ㄝ

ㄎㄝ

ㄝㄌ

ㄝㄇ

ㄋㄝ

ㄛ

ㄆㄝ

ㄑ｜ㄡ

ㄚㄦ

ㄝㄙ

ㄊㄝ

ㄨ

万ㄝ

ㄨㄚ

ㄒ｜

｜ㄚ

ㄗㄝ

[Quest]

I remember that alphabet too.

It was taught to us in first grade, but we thought it was weird, then some of us just changed it to A Bo Ci De E Fo Ge, and that's as far as I can recite straight from memory.

[smithsgj]

what a weird system! soem like English (L and R), others quite arbitrarily different. No wonder no-one uses it!

[Altair]

Thanks for all the interesting and detailed responses.

Just to be clear, my question was not about how to pronounce the sounds of Chinese, but really about how to recite the alphabet. In other words, if you have to spell out an email address or website in Chinese, how do you pronounce the Pinyin letters? I would guess that most American children learn how to sing the names of the letters in the English Alphabet even before learning how to read or write them.

From the responses, it seems that there is wide confusion among Chinese about the names of the letters and that the Pinyin symbols are still looked on as something foreign. I would agree that the system Shibo and Ala have detailed does seem kind of weird.

I had thought of Pinyin as a native alphabet specific to Chinese. For instance, I think I once read that the shape of the Pinyin letter “a” was technically not as it is printed in most English books, but rather the shape that linguists use for the “a” sound in father. This shape does not have the hook on top and looks more like a cursive “a.” Such specificity seem to imply official recognition of a Chinese alphabet, rather than a simple Romanization.

I am somewhat surprised that Chinese apparently use the English names for spelling English abbreviations adopted into Chinese speech. I would have thought that one system would be used for everything. When I spell in other languages, I always use the native names for the alphabet, even when spelling English abbreviations, English names, or loan words. I actually find it occasionally confusing when people switch systems in mid-conversation in order to “help” me, because the names of some letters can become ambiguous; for instance, the pronunciation of the English “g” and “e” sound very close to the pronunciations of the French “j” and “i”. Would not Pinyin “i” and English “e” be also confusing? What about arranging words in alphabetical order? I guess Chinese kids breeze through the alphabet so quickly that no one bothers much with these issues.

The order of the alphabet is actually not as trivial an issue as it might seem. Note the issue of how to alphabetize Chinese words with “ü” in them. There is also much more variation among European languages than one might expect. Some languages treat letters like like ü as separate letters arranged at the end of the alphabet. Another example is that Spanish used to treat “ll” and “ch” as separate letters, making “llama” and “chichi” both four-letter words in Spanish. (By the way, I think Spain has officially agreed under EU pressure to change this treatment, in order to simplify computerization across languages.”)

Ala, thanks for the bomofo transcription, that is exactly what I was looking for; however, what is万? I do not recall seeing this symbol before. Is it pronounced like a “v”? By the way, Spanish “solved” the issue of impossible combinations by officially adding an extra syllable (e.g., “efe” instead of “ef”) or renaming them completely (e.g. “y” griega (Greek “y”), instead of “ü”).

What about @? How do you pronounce this in Chinese? I have hit this issue in several languages I learned before the Internet took off and always choke when I try to exchange email addresses. Now that I think about it, how do you pronounce something like “john.doe@nowhere.com” or “http://www.chinese-forums.com ” to someone over the phone, including all the necessary punctuation marks?

[shibo77]

Right! Hanyu Pinyin uses a handwritten shape. You will notice that very few people actually write "a" as you see here. Hanyu Pinyin lettre shapes are like that taught to first graders in English-speaking countries, without the serifs of a script as Times Roman. V "ve" has a Mandarin Phonetic Symbol equivalent that looks similar to the character 万wan4, but without the hook on the last stroke, and italic looking. It is rarely used, and only used for transcription from ethnic minority languages only. Unfortunately, I don't have the font for this character, but flip to the back of a dictionary with Hanyu Pinyin, and you will find it, along with two more rare lettres, ng (ŋ) and gn (ր), I don't have the fonts for these their Mandarin Phonetic Symbols equivalents either. But gn looks similar to 广, but the dot at the top is straight, and more italic looking. One should be able to find them in the appendices of a good dictionary. Technically, they are in this sequence:

a o e

i u ü

b p m f v

d t n l

g k ng h

j q gn x

zh ch sh r

z c s

Technically, zh ch sh can be written as z c s with a circumflex accent on top. I can't find the z^ font, ĉ ŝ . But I have never seen anyone use these.

I think the Spanish agreed in the early 90's to get rid of the ch, ll, rr. HAnyu Pinyin doesn't consider ŋ, ր, z^, ĉ, ŝ, ü, ê separate lettres.

ŋ becomes ng (2 lettres) only exists as (嗯ng2,3,4) interjections

ր becomes gn (2 lettres)

z^ becomes zh (2 lettres)

ĉ becomes ch (2 lettres)

ŝ becomes sh (2 lettres)

ü remains the same, only exists as (lü2,3,4) (lüe4) (nü3,4) (nüe4), never at the beginning of a word, so no need to consider a separate lettre.

ê remains the same, only exists as (ê1,2,3,4) interjections

These are listed in alphabetical order, ch, ê after e, ng after neng2 before ni2, sh, ü after u, zh.

When we are on the telephone to spell out a certain word (English or Chinese Pinyin or Spanish...), we use English lettres and American English pronounciation of the lettres. That is how it is done in the Mainland at least. This is how I would say them:

john.doe@nowhere.com 这jay-欧oh-唉吃aych-恩en-点diar-地di-欧oh-亿yee-(阿特aht "at" or 在zai)-恩en-欧oh-大不六dabuliu-唉吃aych-亿yee-阿儿ar-亿yee-(到特daot "dot" or 点diar)-靠kao-母mu. You will find the Chinese pronounciation of w and h very pleasant..

"-- dash" would probably be 杠gangr4 (sound like gar4 in Beijing)

": colon" would probably be 冒号maor4 haor4

"// double slash", 双斜线 shuang1xie3xian4

There are some more ways to express punctuation marks and @ and .com, .net, .cn ....

The "a be ce de e ef ge ..." is not very useful, it is only learnt in 1st grade and then forgotten. Some people can still recite them. But if you ask someone to recite the Hanyu Pinyin alphabet, they will probably say it in the order "a o e i u ü bo po mo fo de te ne le ..." In Taiwan, they start with "bo po mo fo de te ne le ..."

I hope this helped!

I have some questions about the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols used in Taiwan.

I have seen two ways of writting Hanyu Pinyin's "i". Both are straight lines, but one is vertical and the other horizontal, ㄧー. I didn't find a pattern to distinguish the use between the two.

How do I use the symbol "y"? It looks like "币" but the first stroke is staright not slanted, and the third stroke has no hooks, also italic looking.

It also has some discrepancies with Hanyu Pinyin. Hanyu Pinyin doesn't have equivalents for the following diphthong and triphthong:

ㄧㄛio ?

ㄧㄞiai ?

多谢了!Thanks in advance!

- Shibo

[Taibei]

Since so many people were interested, I made a Web page to give the information.

Here's the official Hanyu Pinyin alphabet, along with IPA.

[smithsgj]

shibo

唷 ㄧㄛ in pinyin would be written 'yo'

崖　is written yai.

Although these sound combos are rare, the usual pattern of bopomofo ㄧ = pinyin 'y' at syllable initial position does apply.

ㄧ　and | are the same. bopomofo is often used like hiragana, adjacent to the character, in books for foreigners and kids. In this case it is written vertically, and ㄧ is used. When written horizntally (which is what you usally end up doing when typing on a computer), | should be used. But | ironically is not in the standard character set -- I just used the pipe to print it!

I don't know what you mean about 'y' and "币". Hopefully someone else can help.

[shibo77]

Thank you smith! Now I understand!

The "y" looks like an inverted symbol for "ㄓzh", which looks similar to 币 without the hook on the third stroke and slanted first stroke.

Thanks again!

Shibo