Pronunciation in dictionaries and in reality

[Luoman]

I`ve noticed that the pronunciation of some characters in dictionaries and in reality differs a lot.

For example:

熟 in 成熟. Dictionaries say shu2. But everyone seems to say shou2.

血 is xue4 in dictionaries and xue3 in reality.

处 in 处女. It is chu3 in dictionaries and chu4 in reality.

灸 in 针灸. Dictionaries say jiu3, but everyone including Chinese doctors pronounce it as jiu1.

So I want to ask: is it that the dictionaries do not keep up-to-date or everyone`s prononciation is not right?

Any more examples of this phenomena?

[gougou]

塑料 - suoliao.

[muyongshi]

So I want to ask: is it that the dictionaries do not keep up-to-date or everyone`s prononciation is not right?

It's both in a way but think about how much work it takes to update a dictionary. It doesn't happen every year. According to the standard everyone's pronunciation then is wrong. But they do realize that language morphs and so there is always discussions going on of what changes to make. But those thing take time. Until they can come to conclusions to change the things everyone's pronunciation is wrong. But since it takes time all the dictionaries aren't keeping up to date. Make sense?

Here's another one 一模一样 and even my input has the wrong pronunciation. It should be yi mu yi yang (don't believe me 查一下) but I think a majority of people say yi mou yi yang.

风/ 風 should be fēng in 普通话 but almost everybody pronounce it 'fong'.

Never heard this (regional difference?) so I don't think everyone says it.

[Luoman]

but think about how much work it takes to update a dictionary. It doesn't happen every year.

But isn`t there a new edition of 新华字典 nearly every year? So I guess this dictionary is just being reprinted, not changed, right?

[gougou]

So I guess this dictionary is just being reprinted, not changed, right?

It is being changed, sometimes to public outcry...

[muyongshi]

But pronunciations don't change...

And I just talked to some of the profs at my uni (that sounds funny) and they said the majority of language experts don't believe that they will ever change the official pronunciation system. The bigger problem in their mind is to get people to say it right. But they also made a odd distinction between pronunciation 成熟 shou or shu and tone 针灸. How did they make this distinction you ask? By saying 那是声调的问题。。。

[Luoman]

便秘. Everyone says bianmi. Dictionaries say bianbi.

[trufflepig]

Mold 模具

dictionary has mu2ju4

everyone else says mou2ju4

yes - someone PL-ease explain 血 - xie3 xue4 ....xue3 to me.... this has been bugging me for years

[muyongshi]

Do a search please...this has been discussed so many times it hurts my head!

But because I'm so bloody nice...

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/4521-%e8%a1%80

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/964-kissing6

模 character is very interesting it is pronounced wrong now in two situations... hmm 要研究一下

[muyongshi]

And don't you mean they say it mó not móu?

[gougou]

Mold 模具

dictionary has mu2ju4

everyone else says mou2ju4

That one is interesting. The others, you always hear the occasional nerd pronouncing them correctly, but this one I have never heard as muju.

[trufflepig]

Oops - yeah i stand corrected. Mo not Mou...daft pinyin

But the basic point is Moju v Muju was a bugger for me until i decided to stop trying to be dictionary right and just opted to go with the flow.

Thing is, is the 'flow' a regional thing for where i am? or a national thing as 血 seems to be. In discussing mold manufacture its not just "Mold (die)" that is the dilemma - its all the other related words with the same character, for example:

凹模 Die section

模架 die set

浮动模柄 flex coupling

连续模 progressive mold

单工序模 single op die

Everybody uses Mo2 as the pronounciation for 模 where i am in these and other die related words - and they're too tech to be in standard dictionaries so not easy to check if its officially Mu2. I honestly dont know whether its a jiangsu regional variant or something more sinister. But thought it might be relevent for this post.

(Muyongshi - thanks for being as you put it "so bloody nice" by the way - i understand your wrath. A discussion of 血 in a post titled "Pronunciation in dictionaries and in reality" certainly has no place. Apologies for your hurt head)

[muyongshi]

(Muyongshi - thanks for being as you put it "so bloody nice" by the way - i understand your wrath. A discussion of 血 in a post titled "Pronunciation in dictionaries and in reality" certainly has no place. Apologies for your hurt head)

It's not that it has no place...its just such a freakin annoying topic! Sorry I get it beat into my head by my teachers to say it right and then people are always asking well what is right? There's only one right standard way to say it and there are rules that govern which condition to say it in But I am not against the way that everyone else says it.

That is what I am curious about too with the whole mu mo conflict. Is it because of a different meaning that makes it said different? Just by looking at the dictionary it's hard to tell. Heck even my teachers all said yi mo yi yang until one day they in preparation found the correct way of saying it and then changed the way they said it.

But in specific response to your question I don't think it's regional I think everyone says it. It's like characters 似 that change pronunciation in different location and people don't notice it or aren't taught correctly and then it changes in their usage. Even one of my teachers said something something side rather than shide. So the mispronunciation comes from non-thorough education so the debate in the end just is what should be correct (meaning should they change the standard language based on current usage) but it seems that there are many many people who are opposed to it.

I feel better now...

[gougou]

Thing is, is the 'flow' a regional thing for where i am?

I've heard it all over China (which, however, for economic reasons was mostly in Zhejiang/Jiangsu and Guangdong).

[zozzen]

there is a rule of changing tones but i dont remember it exactly. when you see a 'wrong' pronunciation are you sure they arent one of them?

in some cases 'wrong' pronunciation is better regarded as an accent. in Hunan, most people say their provnince as Funan where f and h sound is often confused. Tones in Henan, a province south to beijing, also makes a big different which is regarded as a dialect of Henanese but not 'wrong pronunciation'. Sichuanese is also 'notorious' to pretend to speak putonghua when they actually speak their local dialect that is similar to putonghua. Cantonese and Yunanese putonghua earned their fame as one of the worst in the country too. After 50 years in pushing mandarin as a national spoken language it is still surprising that many chinese dont speak mandarin well. the situation has been improved only thanks to the more common education in recent decade. in my experience many 10+ kids today can speak much better putonghua than their parents. if you are not sure the pronunciation, try to talk to a kid first.

[muyongshi]

there is a rule of changing tones but i dont remember it exactly. when you see a 'wrong' pronunciation are you sure they arent one of them?

The examples listed here do not follow a tone changing rule...they are wrong pronunciation.

[muyongshi]

Not in the spirit of reviving old threads with no point so I do have an addition....

角色- correct: jue se; incorrect jiao se

Used about 50/50 and my input method has both (it's been updated obviously as before it only had the incorrect one)

[Josh2007]

Shóu is the colloquial pronunciation of 熟. Wenlin says "The pronunciation shóu commonly occurs with the same meanings and uses as shú", so you cannot really divide the words containing it into a list that are pronounced shú and a list pronounced shóu (thankfully, as I would never remember which was which).

血 is pronounced xuè or xiě. The pronunciation xuě would be wrong, but there are parts of Chinese where xuě and xiě would be pronounced the same. I thinks parts of the southwest find it hard to distinguish between yin and yun, xie and xue and similar sound pairs. Anyway, once again xiě is the colloquial pronunciation. **Most** of the words listed in Wenlin with xiě can also be pronounced xuè (xuè is the default correct pronunciation), but there may be a few where xiě is genuinely preferred.

处 is pronounced chǔ or chù, but these two have different meanings. 处女 is pronounced chǔnǚ (ie, according to the rules of tone sandhi, as chúnǚ, not as chùnǚ). chù means a place; chǔ means to handle something, or get along with someone.

灸 in 针灸: are you sure it is pronounced jiū? It might be, but foreigners have a hard time hearing the tones, and I would have to get a Chinese opinion first.

塑料: sùliào. There may be some Chinese who say suo, on the basis that 朔 is shuò, but I have never heard suoliao.

一模一样: this is either yìmúyíyàng or yìmóyíyàng. mú is the default pronunciation in 模样 múyàng, with mó as the pronunciation in 模范 mófàn, but the pronunciation móyàng is not wrong.

便秘: I don't know why you think dictionaries say bianbi. The pronunciation, even in dictionaries, is biànmì.

角色: juésè, but jiǎosè is not wrong either.

I don't know why people think the alternative pronunciations are "wrong". It is a bit like a Chinese person telling me definitively that "either" in English had to be pronounced one way or the other. Most of these examples can be pronounced correctly in more than one way according to the largest dictionaries.

[muyongshi]

First they are wrong pronunciations....they do not follow the standard. There is no debate about that they are wrong from a dictionary standpoint, but due to 1) lower education or 2) not caring the other pronunciations have come into colloquial use so from that standpoint they are not wrong.

Shóu is the colloquial pronunciation of 熟. Wenlin says "The pronunciation shóu commonly occurs with the same meanings and uses as shú", so you cannot really divide the words containing it into a list that are pronounced shú and a list pronounced shóu (thankfully, as I would never remember which was which).

Yes saying shou is acceptable but when you say 熟悉 it has to be shu. That is where the difference lies.

灸 in 针灸: are you sure it is pronounced jiū? It might be, but foreigners have a hard time hearing the tones, and I would have to get a Chinese opinion first.

Already confirmed that.

一模一样: this is either yìmúyíyàng or yìmóyíyàng. mú is the default pronunciation in 模样 múyàng, with mó as the pronunciation in 模范 mófàn, but the pronunciation móyàng is not wrong.

模范 and 模样 are two different words with two different meanings so if you said moyang it is incorrect and that is how we know that if it is said mo in 一模一样 it would "change" the meaning and the pronunciation is incorrect by the standard.

The same for thing for 角色.

In these cases the are 'incorrect'. You might not like people telling you it in cases where there is a standard these ones have no alternative in the standard set so therefor the are wrong. But like I said they are accepted in colloquial so I have no problem using them but that is where a distinction has to be made by the standard

[gougou]

角色- correct: jue se; incorrect jiao se

That's what I thought as well when I first heard it, but Kingsoft has both, with slightly differing definitions.