Hanyu pinyin to be official in 2009

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
140

I disagree. TY pinyin is horrible. Better to have at least some of the signs in proper HYP than none of them.

NO, the best pinyin for Taiwan is one that when most foreigners (regardless of any training in Mandarin) read it, they understand it and can use that to communicate with locals. There is no good reason to exclude those with some training in Mandarin from the population of users.

But ESL teachers and Mandarin learners make up a significant population of users – people who need to read those street signs on a daily basis. Tourists and business travelers probably use maps and street signs LESS to find their way around, and use tour guides, limos and taxis more, so they have less need to negotiate their own way using pinyin. Not only have you rudely neglected a significant part of the real user community, but you’ve pretty much got it bassackwards.

That’s hogwash. A standard is a standard for a reason, and that which deviates from it is BY DEFINITION nonstandard.

141

Zhuyin is just a help for people learning the written language. If you want to learn several thousand Chinese characters why not just pick up the 33 or so bopomofos and their combinations and broaden your horizon by reading Taiwanese books for children more easily? I think Zhuyin, like the furigana in Japanese, is pretty handy cause they characters take up less space and can be written besides vertical and horizontal text alike.

142

An example of when having characters is an advantage over pure pinyin:

社經 she4jing1 = socioeconomic
射精 she4jing1 = to ejaculate

143

Different parts of speech, so one would need to be pretty dumb to feck that up, but cute example. :o)

144

The Yale system is the best one that I have seen for that. IMO it’s the one that should be the international standard. The reason (IMO) that China didn’t adopt it is because they didn’t want any round eyed white skinned imperialist running dogs dictating how they should spell their language.

RJF

145

[quote=“Chris”]An example of when having characters is an advantage over pure Pinyin:

社經 she4jing1 = socioeconomic
射精 she4jing1 = to ejaculate[/quote]

This brings the question if their street signs will actually show the tonemarks.
I’ve seen it in some places in China but never in Taiwan.

There’s also the need to put an apostrophe before any syllable that begins with a, e, or o, unless that syllable comes at the beginning of a word or immediately follows a hyphen or other dash.

Better not use English :slight_smile:

146

[quote=“engerim”][quote=“Chris”]An example of when having characters is an advantage over pure Pinyin:

社經 she4jing1 = socioeconomic
射精 she4jing1 = to ejaculate[/quote]

This brings the question if their street signs will actually show the tonemarks.
I’ve seen it in some places in China but never in Taiwan.

There’s also the need to put an apostrophe before any syllable that begins with a, e, or o, unless that syllable comes at the beginning of a word or immediately follows a hyphen or other dash.

Better not use English :slight_smile:
[/quote]

That’s awesome
Not as funny is the Chaojhou Sta for the Chaojhou Train Station I see everyday going to work >.>

147

Breaking news!

It seems even Taichung will adopt and fix spelling mistakes in the process. :slight_smile:
Budget: 50,000,000 NT was approved.
tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/ … 18ka9.html

The article complains that 五權西路 (wu3 quan2 xi1 lu4) is written as
chyan, wuquan and chiuan depending the corner you enter.

The most important is the end:

It says the now approved budget will also be used to use the new norm on transliteration. Which is 漢語拼音 (Hanyu Pinyin) :slight_smile:

148

Now I hope the Post Office website will start spelling addresses correctly, and also start putting the section number AFTER the road name where it should be.

149

I can’t agree with that. The arrangement as it is is to put the elements of the address in English in the logical order, from small to big. A section of a road is smaller than the whole road, so logically it should be placed before the name of the road. The standard way of writing an address in Chinese is also logical, only going from big to small. There is no need to tamper with the order in either the English or the Chinese.

150

I can’t agree with that. The arrangement as it is is to put the elements of the address in English in the logical order, from small to big. A section of a road is smaller than the whole road, so logically it should be placed before the name of the road. The standard way of writing an address in Chinese is also logical, only going from big to small. There is no need to tamper with the order in either the English or the Chinese.[/quote]

It’s logical because you’ve been here forever. Remember, the point is to make it so that foreigners can use the system to mail out or have others mail to them. Tampering to suit local thought patterns gave us Tongyong.

151

Taiwan’s official rules on addressing envelopes (wàiwén yóujiàn dìzhǐ shūxiě yuánzé), as issued by the Ministry of Education, were changed very recently.

Here’s the previous style:

(yī) dì-yī háng: xìngmíng (huò shāngdiàn, gōngsī děng), lìrú: FAN, Kai-Lang
(èr) dì-èr háng: ménpái hàomǎ, lòng, xiàng, duàn, lù jiēmíng, lìrú: No.55, Lane 77, Sec.2, Jinshan S. Rd.
(sān) dì-sān háng: xiāng-zhèn, xiàn-shì, yóudì qūhào, lìrú: Jinshan, Taipei County, 249
(sì) dì-sì háng: guó míng, lìrú: Taiwan (R.O.C.)

And here’s what the new rules give:

(yī) dì-yī háng: xìngmíng (huò shāngdiàn, gōngsī děng), lìrú: Fan Kailang
(èr) dì-èr háng: ménpái hàomǎ, lòng, xiàng, duàn, lù jiēmíng, lìrú: 55, Ln. 77, Sec. 2, Jinshan S. Rd.
(sān) xiāng-zhèn, xiàn-shì, yóudì qūhào, lìrú: Jinshan, Taipei County 10603
(sì) dì-sì háng: guó míng, lìrú: Taiwan (R.O.C.)

So, no change in the placement of “Sec.” But at least there’s now a space after the abbreviations, “Lane” can become “Ln.”, the officially encouraged style has the 5-digit postal code, and there’s no comma before the postal code. And “No.” is no longer mandated. And, of course, personal names are handled differently (though the exact style is still up to the individual).

As far as real-world situations go, however, people can probably put the section number pretty much anywhere and have the letter get through. So go with whatever makes ya happy.

152

At least they’ve added spaces after abbreviations and taken that goddamn comma out of the name. This will save me effort, hopefully: I always have to add spaces and delete the comma when students copy them off the Post Office website!

Still, I’ll have to move the Sec. after the road name, which is the way they always did it back in the 80s and 90s before Chen came along and confounded everything.

153

I always write my address in English in the same format as Chinese, except for the city and country name. eg, Zhongshang West Road, Section 8, Lane 221, Alley 94, No.13-1, 6F, Xizhi City, Taiwan
Why? Because I have no confidence in the mail carriers to interpret a reversed order of numbers.

154

@Chris: Section numbers are supposed to follow street names on road signs, if that helps.

@Maoman: That’s why five-digit postal codes are a foreigner’s best friend in Taiwan’s luànqībāzāo romanization situation.

155

[quote=“cranky laowai”]@Chris: Section numbers are supposed to follow street names on road signs, if that helps.

@Maoman: That’s why five-digit postal codes are a foreigner’s best friend in Taiwan’s luànqībāzāo romanization situation.[/quote]

Five digits? We’ve only got three in Muzha: 116.

156

There’s two more, to narrow it down. Look on the Post Office website to find yours.

post.gov.tw/post/index.jsp

157

[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“cranky laowai”]@Chris: Section numbers are supposed to follow street names on road signs, if that helps.

@Maoman: That’s why five-digit postal codes are a foreigner’s best friend in Taiwan’s luànqībāzāo romanization situation.[/quote]

Five digits? We’ve only got three in Muzha: 116.[/quote]

MM, I think they display only 3 numbers at post offices etc, but in reality theres five. The 4th and 5th digits represent particular streets or communities (or something like that). Somewhere on the post office website is a list of all the 5 digit codes in Taiwan - but don’t ask me for the link, I don’t have a clue where it is.

158

I always put the Sec. behind the street name. Though a section is smaller than the street, it is actually a part of the street name in my view. However, this makes it easier to forget the Sec. part when translating addresses from Chinese into English. Happens all the time…

When it comes to logic, the order in Chinese makes much more sense than that of the English. From Big to Small it should be all the way.

159

[quote=“cfimages”]MM, I think they display only 3 numbers at post offices etc, but in reality theres five. The 4th and 5th digits represent particular streets or communities (or something like that). Somewhere on the post office website is a list of all the 5 digit codes in Taiwan - but don’t ask me for the link, I don’t have a clue where it is.[/quote]I do, it’s here: post.gov.tw/post/internet/u_ … &ID=210105 They call them ZIP codes though, chabuduo.

The 3 digit postal codes cover several hundred thousand addresses each, so are pretty pointless in sorting mail.