New Romanization Requirements

[Mr_He]

Hanyu pinyin worked fine for me.

I gave up on zhuyin fu hao, as I found it complicating the process, but I set out studying at a non-Taiwanese university.

I would imagine that the transcription system used has a relatively small impact on the outcome. Quality of teachers matter more. people telling me that you learn it better by using Zhuyin fuhao are usually parroting propaganda spread by MTC. I have been told some ignorant Taiwanese that my accent is caused by me studying zhuyin fuhao. My reply is that i studied the best system available - HYPY

[Mr_He]

@littleiron

Simplified is ugly. There’s no history behind them (and thus no meaning for the more complicated characters), which makes it easier to learn in the beginning, and harder to learn later. And on a practical level, it’s MUCH easier learning simplified after traditional, rather than the other way around.

No major difference in my view. Purely cosmetical. Both systems are relics, which should be abolished. If the PRC had abolished measure words and characters in favor of pinyin, now that would have been a step forward.

[redwagon]

@Holger Nygaard

Both systems are relics, which should be abolished.

Well, let’s just abolish the culture as well then.

Oh wait, they already tried that once… never mind.

[Lord_Lucan]

[quote=“hsiadogah”][quote=“Maoman”]
Only if you’re one of those foreigners that insists on anglicizing foreign words,

The fact is, you could phoneticize all the vowel sounds of Mandarin with Coco Lee album covers, and do the consonants with Jacky Chang album covers and if you knew and practiced them correctly, you could still learn “perfect” Chinese pronunciation.

To suggest that all foreigners are incapable of “accurate” pronunciations when they learn another language that also uses the roman alphabet is ridiculous.[/quote]

I knew I was going to need the suit if I were to challenge some deep-seated beliefs.
Have I cast aspertions on your sacred cow? Oops.

I’m not suggesting it’s not possible to learn accurate Mandarin pronunciation via romanization, just that if one is attempting a serious assault on the language, what is another handful of symbols which better represent the sounds described, are meant to be combined to make complete syllables, and don’t come with the baggage of sounds from another (completely different) language attached to them? [/quote]

Utter nonsense. Please explain to me what “baggage” roman characters have for Arabs, Russians, Mainland Chinese, Greeks ? Pick any one of them.

The perhaps you might explain what baggage a system using the Cyrillic alphabet might have for me, bearing in mind that I can’t read it.

If people allow interference from their mother tongue it is the learner’s error, not the system’s. Your assumption is that people whose mother tongue language uses roman characters find it more difficult to pronounce Chinese sounds if they learn Hanyu Pinyin. (Then you go on to say we should abandon QWERTY keyboards. I don’t understand that one)

Language acquisition begins with listening. The is no English equivalent for “xue”. It is meaningless. You might as well ask someone to pronounce “gftre”. Every since I first went to Taiwan I have had to listen to people telling me that Pinyin is no good because foreigners automatically try to pronounce it any old way regardless of what they have been taught, and I think that’s a little bit insulting.

And I do like bopomofo. It’s a well respected system, and is set out in great detail in most Mainland dictionaries, alongside HYPY. My point is, that by denying beginner students the opportunity to learn HYPY, Taiwan is cutting them off from the system that the rest of the world uses, simply for political reasons. It is high time foreign learners were allowed to get on with learning Chinese in Taiwan without interference from a government who evidently knows nothing about how foreigners learn Chinese, and insists on making illogical and damaging decisions based on a purely political policy of “whatever China does we don’t allow it”.

In fact I’m fed up with the whole debate. Boy, is studying Chinese in China a breeze compared to studying it in Taiwan.

No offence, hsiadogah, I’m not having a go at you personally

[Lord_Lucan]

[quote=“hsiadogah”]It seems to me that we all agree on a few things:

Whichever system we learned first is best because it worked for us.

Tongyong is like reinventing the wheel. It’s no better than anything else out there now, and quite possibly not even as good.

If Taiwan wants to attract foreign students to come and learn Chinese here, it’s a bad idea to force Tongyong on them. Not that the economy hinges on income from foreign students of course…
[/quote]

Again I disagree to some extent. Taiwan’s position in the world can only improve by having graduate sinologists spend some time there, or by having a large foreign population who like the place. Even at the moment, there is a sufficient population of Americans. to ensure that any PRC invasion will place US citizens in grave danger, and hence Congress would be up in arms (literally).

[cranky_laowai]

[quote=“hsiadogah”]It seems to me that we all agree on a few things:

Whichever system we learned first is best because it worked for us.[/quote]
I disagree. I learned Wade-Giles first and think hanyu pinyin is better. I’d be willing to bet that most other people who learned W-G first feel the same way.

Re. zhuyin fuhao: Don’t count on it continuing to be taught, even here in Taiwan. I give it to the end of this decade, tops. Generally speaking, tongyong supporters are pushing to oust it in favor of their system, and many in the pro-hanyu camp have no interest in defending it and would just as soon see it disappear.

[redwagon]

[quote=“hexuan”]
Language acquisition begins with listening. The is no English equivalent for “xue”. It is meaningless. You might as well ask someone to pronounce “gftre”.[/quote]

So why even bother using the roman alphabet then?

@hexuan

And I do like bopomofo. It’s a well respected system, and is set out in great detail in most Mainland dictionaries, alongside HYPY. My point is, that by denying beginner students the opportunity to learn HYPY, Taiwan is cutting them off from the system that the rest of the world uses, simply for political reasons. It is high time foreign learners were allowed to get on with learning Chinese in Taiwan without interference from a government who evidently knows nothing about how foreigners learn Chinese, and insists on making illogical and damaging decisions based on a purely political policy of “whatever China does we don’t allow it”.

And thus to the point. In a real market economy the students would choose schools based upon the merits of the courses and how they were to be taught. When politics interferes with market forces, the consumer usually suffers.

[redwagon]

@hexuan

Taiwan’s position in the world can only improve by having graduate sinologists spend some time there, or by having a large foreign population who like the place. Even at the moment, there is a sufficient population of Americans. to ensure that any PRC invasion will place US citizens in grave danger, and hence Congress would be up in arms (literally).

Yes, but then you are able to see further than the end of your nose, which the promoters of TY seem unwilling or unable to.

What I meant was that no-one in the public sector would lose much in the way of income if there weren’t any students coming to learn Chinese.

No offence taken.

[redwagon]

[quote=“hexuan”](Then you go on to say we should abandon QWERTY keyboards. I don’t understand that one)

[/quote]I meant that every k/b I ever saw or used here was a Chinese version. Every single one, PC clone or Mac, desktop or notebook. It’s not like you are forced to input in roman characters…

BTW, what or who is MTC? Never heard of it.

[Lord_Lucan]

I dunno if I mentioned it in my posts, but the MTC may refer to the Mandarin Training Center of Shi Da… I assume in this context that would be it…

BTW to their credit, the teachers at Zheng Da in 1992 were quite happy to use HYPY for us Western and Korean students in my classes. As long as we could recognize BPMF they were happy enough. I liiked Zheng Da much better than the MTC and it’s a nicer place Mucha, I think.

[Juba]

In Taiwan is is the Tongyongists who want to scrap zhuyin fuhao. I say keep zhuyin fuhao and teach Hanyu pinyin in parallel. As the previous poster pointed out, Hanyu pinyin can be mastered very quickly by any Chinese person who has learned both zhuyin fuhao and English.