Hanyu Pinyin Battle Lost?

[Taiwanguy]

@yyy

@Taiwanguy

The letters are there for people who can’t read the Chinese characters. PERIOD.

Wrong. (Period.) Go to a (mainland) Chinese museum with ancient artifacts that have strange names. Read the Chinese captions, and you will probably notice HP in brackets, to let native speakers know how to pronounce those uncommon characters.

I can already hear some honorable members of the forum saying bopomofo serves the same purpose, but if people only have time to learn so much in their busy school lives, why not have them learn something more useful than a special alphabet no-one else on the planet uses?

I’m talking about Taiwan. I’m well aware of the additional conveniences of hanyu pinyin in China. Foreigners that don’t know Chinese can write down a romanized address, show it to a taxi driver and he/she will know exactly where to go. In Taiwan, you will never be able to show a taxi driver any form of romanization. It’s completely useless as a tool to facilitate communication between foreigners and Chinese speakers. That’s why when I’m speaking of romanization in Taiwan I assert that it’s SOLE purpose is to convey Chinese proper nouns to non-Chinese readers.

I wish I could convince Taiwan to abandon the ridiculous zhuyin fuhao in favor of hanyu pinyin as a method to teach Mandarin pronunciation, but I know full well that is an impossible task.