Flickserve Posted February 13, 2015 at 07:07 AM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 07:07 AM OP, What you hear and you trying to replicate may not match up even though you think it does. I have this problem. My ear is not attuned to some of the different sounds and my mouth is not used to making new sounds. Which means feedback is needed with practice and experimentation of the sounds. You can't do that over an internet forum. I have had difficulty with z- and zh-. It's getting there but it's taking time. Getting the right sounds was a bit hit and miss. But, now I am getting more consistent. Does it match up to the romanisation? Not really. But as a previous post pointed out, different languages will produce different sounds. Heck, even an american trying to speak an english word will be different from an english person's speech. How 'correct' you want it depends on how much value you place on accuracy. There are plenty of learners who can be understood with an accent typical of chinese as a second language. There are a minority who really want their accent as accurate as possible. The more accurate you want it, the more time and tenacity is needed by yourself on training your ear and voice. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted February 13, 2015 at 02:30 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 02:30 PM Does it match up to the romanisation? Not really. Technically, if you're saying it correctly, it matches up perfectly to the romanisation. Pinyin: zhōng Zhuyin: ㄓㄨㄥ Wade-Giles: chung1 Gwoyeu Romatzyh: jong IPA: /ʈ͡ʂʊŋ⁵⁵/* Yale: jūng The Mandarin pronunciation of “中” (when it means “middle”) matches up exactly with all of these, just as this colour matches exactly with the representations “red”, “#FF0000” or “(255, 0, 0)”. If you saw pinyin “zhōng” and pronounced it as pinyin [chōng], [zhóng], [zhēng], [jiǒng] etc., only then could you properly say that your utterance and its textual representation didn't match up. *Taken from Wiktionary. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 13, 2015 at 03:40 PM Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 03:40 PM Narrowing down the issue to the question of how 'zhong' should be pronounced, that is, whether it should be 'Jhong' or 'jhoong', in other words, Pinyin or Yale, the verdict is still out. First of all, can you believe you should say China as 'Jhongguo' instead of 'jhoongguo? This question has not been limited to recent times, but prerennially raised, casting a lot of questions to the legitimacy of the so-called Pinyin. If the chaos was to continue, it would be far better to return to Wade-Giles, legendary system . I am not alone. See? 1.Re: How to say China in Chinese Thank you! But how do you pronounce that? Is it something along the lines of "Chung-gwo"?? 4.Re: How to say China in Chinese In Mandarin Chinese, the pinyin is zhong guo and it's pronounced kinda like "joong gwo". Did you see the 'joong gwo'? He must be dumb to someone. I don't think how a dumb people say such a insightful remark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yorin Posted February 13, 2015 at 03:54 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 03:54 PM I'm outta here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satirical Posted February 13, 2015 at 03:56 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 03:56 PM @Savah I'm not sure exactly what point you were trying to make in your last post, but I'll try to explain what I interpret. First off, you're casting aspersions about Pinyin being legitimate. The 'so-called' Pinyin, commonly known as just Pinyin, is not considered to be the end-all be-all pronunciation system by everyone. However, it does work well enough that it has been widely adopted and used extensively. The key point you're missing in your distinction between Yale and Pinyin is that you assume that using english characters, you can actually get the correct way to write the pronunctiation of chinese words. You're approaching it from the wrong angle. You recognize that since english phonetic symbols were not created with expressing the sounds of Mandarin Chinese in mind, that the correct spelling of a word in english phonetic symbols isn't set in stone (hence your comparison of Yale versus Pinyin). However, you are incorrect when you refer to the 'chaos' as causing problems. For most people, Pinyin more than suffices as a system, or even for others, Wade-Giles. Yale may simply have been replaced by a system that has a better (more useful to more people) approximation of the correct sound. What is important is acheiving the correct pronunciation, not how it's written. Each system has a different method of interpreting sounds and expressing them on paper, it's just a matter of learning how a particular system works. Whether someone uses Yale or not, or Pinyin or not, has nothing to do with their intelligence, and someone's intelligence doesn't prove that they're using the 'right' system either. That's fallacious arguing. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post edelweis Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:03 PM Popular Post Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:03 PM "savah" isn't trying to make a point. savah is trolling. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:19 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:19 PM First of all, can you believe you should say China as 'Jhongguo' instead of 'jhoongguo?No, I believe that you should say /ʈ͡ʂʊŋ⁵⁵ ku̯ɔ³⁵/ and that romanisation systems are unimportant as long as they are internally consistent. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:26 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:26 PM For what it's worth, the thread savah is quoting from is here: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1063190 @savah, when you quote a thread, it's good practice to wrap the quoted text in quotation marks, and link to the original thread, otherwise people won't have any idea what the heck you're talking about. Also, the fact that some people are confused about how to pronounce “中” or “中国” does not mean that there is a problem with pinyin. It means that these people are beginners at learning Chinese. The fact that you do not understand some aspect of a language doesn't mean there is a problem with the language itself, it means you need to learn more. "savah" isn't trying to make a point.savah is trolling. Maybe... or maybe just has a very poor understanding of linguistics and hasn't properly read or understood any of the replies in this thread. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelina Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:41 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:41 PM I'm tired. Bye bye! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:45 PM Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 04:45 PM Renzhe said, 'No, I believe that you should say /ʈ͡ʂʊŋ⁵⁵ ku̯ɔ³⁵/ How right you are! You can say that again, again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:01 PM Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:01 PM How misleading would it be if people following pinyin say China 'jhongguo' instead of jhoongguo'! However, dictionaries are displaying pinyin and pronouncing 'jhong' for 'zhong' for 'middle' in Chinese. All this after, pinyin stresses 'ong' to be 'ong', never 'oong'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:05 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:05 PM Learning Pinyin correctly will take you 15 minutes. That's much less than you've wasted on this thread. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:12 PM Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:12 PM @edelweis, How sad it is to see people hurting people inatead of caring. What kind of place is this?This is the same kind of place we see in many places? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:18 PM Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:18 PM @renzhe, I beg you to be my teacher for pinyin, please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renzhe Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:39 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 05:39 PM You need to hear the pronunciation in order to learn pinyin. Pronunciation can't be taught through writing. You could use one of many pinyin charts available on the internet. Here's the first one I ran into: http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_pinyin.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edelweis Posted February 13, 2015 at 07:53 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 07:53 PM Narrowing down the issue to the question of how 'zhong' should be pronounced, that is, whether it should be 'Jhong' or 'jhoong', in other words, Pinyin or Yale, the verdict is still out. [...] Did you see the 'joong gwo'? He must be dumb to someone. I don't think how a dumb people say such a insightful remark. This is the same kind of place we see in many places? I apologize. Savah is not trolling. That was quite insensitive of me, not to mention un-PC. BTW kudos for your patience and explanations people. I hit the green button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hofmann Posted February 13, 2015 at 08:49 PM Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 at 08:49 PM What the what? savah, what's your first language? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 14, 2015 at 07:28 AM Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 at 07:28 AM What the what? Is this how you are asking a question? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 14, 2015 at 07:48 AM Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 at 07:48 AM http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html?find=中Please tell us what you heard. Roughly, 'Choong' or 'Chong'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
savah Posted February 14, 2015 at 07:54 AM Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 at 07:54 AM Please insert 'zhong' into the search box and select 中 displayed under. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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