it’s 2008. Time to drop zhuyin. What are you thinking?
Guys, couldn’t we just see the bopomofo as similar top, at least in function -which this I mean a learning tool- such as katakana and hiragana in Japanese? When I was learning Japanese we did those and it wasn’t that bad.
In that case, we keep it with kids and serious learners, as reading the stuff out loud in foreign language, for a visitor, still is as helpful as a “Quick Guide to Taipei: getting a Taxi”
You’ve got the wrong idea about this book. It doesn’t claim to have accurate etymological info. That info is just to organise the characters and help remember them. The clear layout and multiple ways of looking up the characters - even just from fragments you recognise - makes this a great learning tool (although not strictly speaking a dictionary).
By repeatedly calling its contents “etymologies” and claiming to follow scholarly tradition, Harbaugh runs the risk that ‘low-information readers’ will think that his entries are accurate. By claiming that it “follows the basic etymologies set by 許慎 and elaborated on by Chinese scholars over the centuries”, Harbaugh fails to acknowledge that he just bullshitted for some of the entries for mnemonic purposes. His disclaimers in the foreword are far too weak compared to the inaccuracy of the information, and it’s reasonable to remind people of that each time someone recommends the book. The foreword should have said “WARNING: the etymologies in this book are often inaccurate, and are really just there for mnemonic purposes.”
You’re right in that the info SHOULD be “just to organise the characters and help remember them” but IMO the author doesn’t stress this point enough. I completely agree that “The clear layout and multiple ways of looking up the characters - even just from fragments you recognise - makes this a great learning tool (although not strictly speaking a dictionary)”. My point was specifically about what makes a good dictionary and that it is also not good etymology. I agree that it is a good tool. I have three copies of this book myself.
Anybody else read this article in China Post today?
chinapost.com.tw/commentary/ … oxiong.htm
Sorry cannot get this as a link. Tried copy and paste but it does not work. Anyway interesting point of view even though I do not totally agree.
Guess the link work OK after a submitted the post. Ignore that last comment. I am new to this!
[quote=“SRS”]Anybody else read this article in China Post today?
chinapost.com.tw/commentary/ … oxiong.htm
Sorry cannot get this as a link. Tried copy and paste but it does not work. Anyway interesting point of view even though I do not totally agree.[/quote]
Excerpt:
“Chingshui, the name which means Clear Water and was given by the Japanese to supersede Niumatou (Ox-Horse Head), has to be called Qinshui.”
Shouldn’t it have to be called "Qin[color=#FF0000]g[/color]shui?
Also, I never heard anything about major cities like Taipei, Hsinchu or Kaohsiung having to change their spelling: I thought that part was still optional. And spellings for personal names remains optional, too, so I read. As for Hanyu Pinyin being forced upon the towns and streets of Taiwan: 
Yay! It’ll purge Taiwan of that gawdawful Tongyong once and for all!
I also have to criticize his complaints about how Hanyu Pinyin would be read by people from different countries: the same criticisms can be leveled at ANY romanization system. But foreigners who learn Chinese learn Hanyu Pinyin, and a unified system will be far more helpful than the mishmash we have now.
Wow, that newspaper is a poc. Pinyin mistakes in an article about pinyin. The use of the expression ‘My foot’ is just such appallingly poor style, it makes me cringe.
Anyway, off topic.
Whenever Joe Hung puts pen to paper on language issues he screws it up. Nothing to do with his politics, he just doesn’t know what he is talking about when it comes to linguistics. He seems to think his home-town of Danshui is spelled “Tamsui” in Wade-Giles, but that ain’t Mandarin, Joe - it’s that Hoklo you so despise. (Wade-Giles would actually be “Tan-shui”.)
In fact, I’ve ranted about him before.
Still, expecting informed writers (or even ones prepared to do a bit of research and fact-checking) in the local rags is probably a bridge too far.
I have no problems typing in Zhuyin. Taught myself in about a day. A little slow at first, but once you learn the characters, it’s seems to go along okay.
and the poster above, who said typing in Pinyin was much faster because you could find the character even if you didn’t know the tone… does that not defeat the point of learning the character?
Sure, you could still read it and type it, but if you don’t know the tone… have you really studied? Hence why I like typing in Zhuyin. You must know the exact pronunciation and the tone to be presented with a list of possible characters. This has helped me in my pronunciation as, when I type characters (like for my FullRecall flashcards) it gets embedded in my brain - pronunciation and tone altogether. Much better than half-knowing a character and waiting for the computer to show me.
To each his own, I suppose.
[quote=“MPenguin”]I have no problems typing in Zhuyin. Taught myself in about a day. A little slow at first, but once you learn the characters, it’s seems to go along okay.
and the poster above, who said typing in Pinyin was much faster because you could find the character even if you didn’t know the tone… does that not defeat the point of learning the character?[/quote]
Depends on your needs. When I type in Chinese, my purpose is to write, not to learn Chinese.
It’s not an inherently superior system but learning it allows one access to the entire catelogue of reading materials created for young Taiwanese learners. Learn only HP and you are stuck reading text books until you have acquired a couple thousand characters. (Or painfully work your way through a native text with a dictionary.)[/quote]
There are quite a few children in China, too. They read books annotated with pinyin in much the same way Taiwanese kids read books annotated with zhuyin. Foreigners there, especially Beijing, have an impressive array of learning materials to choose from.
I came back to this forum to get a quick idea of what waiguoren in Tawain feels about Hanyu Pinyin. My impression is that most of you welcome this change.
Here are my thoughts:
Changing the pinyin system from one to another doesn’t cost much money. But it doesn’t gain much either. It’s not like a foreign investment decision to invest in Taiwan or not is based on its pinyin system. Yes i know it’s convenient for all businesses that have interest in both Taiwan and China. But that’s all there is to it.
This implies that language has a lot to do with politics. I mean sovereignty. It also has to do with culture, and culture is related to sovereignty. Anyway. i won’t elaborate on politics here.
A HY pinyin that is used inconsistently is not any better than a TY piyin that is used consistently.
The best pinyin for Taiwan is one that when most foreigners(without any training in Mandarin), pronounce it , Taiwanese actually understand. The system won’t satisfy everyone, but what types of foreigners that we Taiwanese should primarily care about? Tourists and business travelers from the US, Japan, Korea and Europe. Definitely NOT ESL teachers or Mandarin learners.
Just because one thing is a standard doesn’t mean anything else is, or should be considered, nonstandard.
[quote=“Icon”]Guys, couldn’t we just see the bopomofo as similar top, at least in function -which this I mean a learning tool- such as katakana and hiragana in Japanese? When I was learning Japanese we did those and it wasn’t that bad.
In that case, we keep it with kids and serious learners, as reading the stuff out loud in foreign language, for a visitor, still is as helpful as a “Quick Guide to Taipei: getting a Taxi”[/quote]
yes. And once you master the kana system you can foreget about romaji. If you are only comfortable with romaji you’ll never speak like a native.
Also, bopomofo is indeed a type of kana. Each Ka( pseudo) na(word) was derived from Kanji.
bopomofo was also derived from Kanji. It was invented in the early 20th century during which a lot of scholars have gone to Japan to learn and copy from the Japanese. (The Meiji period)
[quote=“walile”][quote=“Icon”]Guys, couldn’t we just see the bopomofo as similar top, at least in function -which this I mean a learning tool- such as katakana and hiragana in Japanese? When I was learning Japanese we did those and it wasn’t that bad.
In that case, we keep it with kids and serious learners, as reading the stuff out loud in foreign language, for a visitor, still is as helpful as a “Quick Guide to Taipei: getting a Taxi”[/quote]
yes. And once you master the kana system you can foreget about romaji. If you are only comfortable with romaji you’ll never speak like a native.
Also, bopomofo is indeed a type of kana. Each Ka( pseudo) na(word) was derived from Kanji.
bopomofo was also derived from Kanji. It was invented in the early 20th century during which a lot of scholars have gone to Japan to learn and copy from the Japanese. (The Meiji period)[/quote]
Yep, that was my point.
I am glad to use Hanyu Pinyin because my work goes abroad and hence, people all over will be able to get to know and even research more about the places and things I mention, not just people in Taiwan who have studied Tonyong -very few, indeed- who then are able to recognize and find out about those issues… For the purpose of my work, Hanyu makes more sense. Communication is about building bridges, not walls.
If you have any understanding of romanization, you’ll know that this is basically impossible.
Why on earth is that? Complete bollocks. Foreign tourists and foreign residents are both important. What romanization system is used makes little difference for tourists, but can make a lot of different to visitors and residents with some knowledge of Mandarin.
A consistent international standard has huge benefits. Obviously HP is the modern international standard.
It’s not an inherently superior system but learning it allows one access to the entire catelogue of reading materials created for young Taiwanese learners. Learn only HP and you are stuck reading text books until you have acquired a couple thousand characters. (Or painfully work your way through a native text with a dictionary.)[/quote]
There are quite a few children in China, too. They read books annotated with Pinyin in much the same way Taiwanese kids read books annotated with zhuyin. Foreigners there, especially Beijing, have an impressive array of learning materials to choose from.[/quote]
Yes, but for those who want to learn traditional characters, and Mandarin as it is used in Taiwan, those books are no where near as useful as the books here with zhuyin. It’s pretty simple really. Books in Taiwan, available in Taiwan, are annotated with zhuyin. Therefore, if you live in Taiwan, and study in Taiwan, you should learn zhuyin as it opens up a lot of native resources to you.
All I care about is that there is no more than one way of transliteration used for the same language in the same country. That’s all. Now, since there is and will be no perfect system, why not use the one currently used by the most people in the world? Thanks, new government, for answering my prayers.
People are smart, and figuring out how to pronounce a word written in Hanyu Pinyin or any other system is not really that difficult. It doesn’t matter, whether it’s zh, jh, ch or whatever, those who need to learn the correct prounciation will find a way to do so. The rest can use English, Japanese, or sign language, or whatever to communicate.
If you go to an English-speaking country you know that “Th” is pronounced differently than “T”, if you go to France you learn how to omit the “H” sound at the beginning of words, if you go to Russia you will find that some of the cyrrillic letters look familiar, but are pronounced differently.
So it’s no big deal when a foreign visitor needs to learn a certain transliteration system, it’s just part of the foreign experience.
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Xiaoma”][quote=“Muzha Man”]
It’s not an inherently superior system but learning it allows one access to the entire catelogue of reading materials created for young Taiwanese learners. Learn only HP and you are stuck reading text books until you have acquired a couple thousand characters. (Or painfully work your way through a native text with a dictionary.)[/quote]
There are quite a few children in China, too. They read books annotated with Pinyin in much the same way Taiwanese kids read books annotated with zhuyin. Foreigners there, especially Beijing, have an impressive array of learning materials to choose from.[/quote]
Yes, but for those who want to learn traditional characters, and Mandarin as it is used in Taiwan, those books are no where near as useful as the books here with zhuyin. It’s pretty simple really. Books in Taiwan, available in Taiwan, are annotated with zhuyin. Therefore, if you live in Taiwan, and study in Taiwan, you should learn zhuyin as it opens up a lot of native resources to you.[/quote]
I have learned zhuyin, and it is because I live here. That doesn’t have anything to do with what feiren said, though. Zhuyin has no inherent superiority. There are plenty of foreigners who speak excellent Chinese with no accent who started with pinyin. Many of those also studying literature can also read and write more traditional characters than any of us by far.
Learning zhuyin because one lives in Taiwan makes perfect sense.
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.