Varying Pronunciation of 和?

[boafriend]

I'm a heritage learner of Mandarin Chinese and it's really confused me the past year about how 和 is pronounced. I learned it as "hé" but for some reason I hear SO many people pronounce it as "han". I've noticed it's apparently a Taiwanese pronunciation, as I've only heard mainland China people pronounce it as "hé".

Because when I hear people who pronounce it as "han" (let's just say Taiwanese news reporters for example), it's always in the form of a conjunction, like for example ("Bob and his dad", they pronounce as "Bob han tā fùqīn")- BUT for other words with the letter 和 in it, they pronounce it normally (ex. "hé", like 和平 will be pronounced normally like "hépíng").

Could someone explain why this is so? I was in a Chinese heritage learner class in my university and the teacher was a Mainlander and our book was very Mainland like in its Chinese (used a lot of 兒), but point is we learned 和 as "hé", yet when some students pronounced it as "han", the teacher never said their pronunciation was wrong. I know for sure "hé" is the standard Chinese pronunciation, but why do so many Taiwanese people pronounce it as "han"?

[skylee]

I suppose you know that 和 has other pronunciations including huo4, he4 etc ->

http://humanum.arts....ory=wholerecord

http://cdict.net/?q=%E5%92%8C+

I know for sure "hé" is the standard Chinese pronunciation, but why do so many Taiwanese people pronounce it as "han"?

There are different standards in different places. Why are there different spellings for words like instalment, sceptical, traveller etc?

[Lu]

From what I know, you're right, it's a Taiwanese thing. In Taiwan, when the meaning is 'and', he2 and han4 are both correct. They're interchangable, although to me han4 sounds slightly more formal and has a bit more stress, and (again to me) it sounds a bit silly if you replace all your he2s with han4s.

[Jose]

This is one of the cases mentioned in the "Characters with different pronunciations on Mainland / Taiwan" thread.

[Hofmann]

So, where did "hàn" come from?

[boafriend]

Thanks for the responses and links, but upon reading that whole ROC establishments of pronunciation in that Taiwan/Maindland thread, I'm more confused than ever.

So Lu is saying that "he" and "han" pronunciation is interchangeable?

Because in the Taiwan/Mainland thread, sjcma says:

My brother and I say "han4" all the time in natural speech. That's the way we were taught as kids. Han4 is an "older" pronounciation that comes straight out of the Kangxi dictionary, I believe. Nowadays, he2 has become more common in popular usage.

The differences in pronounciation between mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin standards are due to history. After the Qing dynasty was overthrown, the new ROC government created a national language (Mandarin) and standardized the pronounciation. Thus, a committee of people came together and by the 1920's, standard Mandarin pronounciation became cemented and stable. In the 1950's, the newly formed communist government decided to establish its own standard called putonghua along with character simplification.

So would it be weird if I use the "He2" pronunciation in all forms, and never pronounce 和 as "Han4"? Because I hear countless reporters in Taiwan news, Taiwanese celebrities in commercials, dramas, etc pronounce in "Han4", so I was starting to wonder if there was a "correct" way to pronounce 和

[heifeng]

OH NO, this thread just caused me to flashback to the secret language war (more of awkwardness) that would go on in college...the whole 'Mainland' vs. 'Taiwan' issue. Good thing I could claim I was 'Switzerland'.

It was bad enough every class has the simplified vs. traditional script war. This Han/He issue became the next sticking point b/t students & teachers. (Teachers would correct students, students would ignore teachers...queue an eyeroll). Now I am interested in the 'proper usage' of han now too, eventhough it's been on my listening radar for quite a long time now.

Anyway good question....Also, review the other 和 pronunciation Skylee mentioned B)

[Lu]

Fwiw, I almost always say he2 and never got corrected on it when studying in Taiwan. In any case, neither is wrong, even in Taiwan. On the mainland I don't think I ever heard han4, but I might be mistaken.