i learned my chinese through bo po mo, actually quicker and you have access to a lot better materials…i find the use of pinyin inconsistent and wrong, so i stay away from it as much as possible.
I find that most people who learned Chinese through bopomofo think it’s the best, and often refuse to use pinyin, while those who learned through pinyin think it’s the best system and often look down on bopomofo.
But even if bopomofo is the best way to learn, there is still a need for a common romanization system, and pinyin is by far the best. Wish it was used across the board like it is in China. It’s much more inconsistent and wrong for everyone to use different systems, or just to make up their own.
i agree with you, you either love one or the other…
well my preference on bo po mo comes down to the materials…IMHO, with pinyin you are limited in your selection, and quite frankly, the themes are very limited…
i searched up and down every little bookstore i could fine…online, i used a bit, but just for listening…i used to go to a bookstore and just pick up an elementary level story book or use some of my students old elementary school chinese books. saved lots of cash that way…
every end of the elementary semester ask your students for their old chinese textbooks…
for a while i was reading children’s fairy tales in chinese, that got tricky because of some of the vague english that’s used in those stories it’s sometimes ‘interesting’ how it’s translated… i could learn quicker and get away from the boring conversation books…
when i teach, sometimes if i forget a certain character, i can just write the bo po mo on the board…quick and easy…
with my son, who is pushing four, is starting to do bo po mo, this way, both my wife and i can help him…
in taiwan, bo po mo, in the motherland, pinyin…be adaptable i guess…
really, it’s everybody’s bag which one you want to use.
Something that those promoting pinyin as a learning tool seem to never appreciate:
None of the natives in Taiwan are remotely familiar with it.
So it’s like using a second foreign language.
At least if you know BPMF, a local can show you how a new Chinese word or character is pronounced.
Try going up to some dude on the street and asking directions using pinyin.
You might as well ask in Uzbeki.
I have to be honest. What the original OP is bitching about I couldn’t really give a shit, but when I see “[bopomofo/pinyin] is [easier/quicker/better/faster/stronger/sexier]” I have a mini fit of rage.
I am fluent in pinyin and bopomofo. they [strike]are the same damn thing[/strike] are equivalent in their purpose of providing symbols to associate sounds with chinese characters.
I have to be honest. What the original OP is bitching about I couldn’t really give a shit, but when I see “I learned my chinese with [bopomofo/pinyin] and it’s [easier/quicker/better/faster/stronger/sexier]” I have a mini fit of rage.
I am fluent in pinyin and bopomofo. they are the same damn thing.[/quote]
Huh?
I have to be honest. What the original OP is bitching about I couldn’t really give a shit, but when I see “I learned my chinese with [bopomofo/pinyin] and it’s [easier/quicker/better/faster/stronger/sexier]” I have a mini fit of rage.
I am fluent in pinyin and bopomofo. they are the same damn thing.[/quote]
Huh?[/quote]
Edited for clarity.
[quote=“Icon”]1. We are lazy.
-
We do not use it in our daily lives/work
-
When we use it, we get shot down[/quote]
This one belongs in the original thread.
[quote=“baberenglish”]I agree with you, you either love one or the other…
well my preference on bo po mo comes down to the materials…IMHO, with pinyin you are limited in your selection, and quite frankly, the themes are very limited…
i searched up and down every little bookstore i could fine…online, i used a bit, but just for listening…i used to go to a bookstore and just pick up an elementary level story book or use some of my students old elementary school chinese books. saved lots of cash that way…
every end of the elementary semester ask your students for their old chinese textbooks…
for a while I was reading children’s fairy tales in chinese, that got tricky because of some of the vague english that’s used in those stories it’s sometimes ‘interesting’ how it’s translated… i could learn quicker and get away from the boring conversation books…
when i teach, sometimes if i forget a certain character, i can just write the bo po mo on the board…quick and easy…
with my son, who is pushing four, is starting to do bo po mo, this way, both my wife and I can help him…
in taiwan, bo po mo, in the motherland, pinyin…be adaptable i guess…
really, it’s everybody’s bag which one you want to use.[/quote]
對ㄉㄨㄟˋ ㄚ!
I’m a huge fan of bopo- I can use children’s books to learn, I can ask any Taiwanese person near me if I need help writing something down, I can use the same computer/phone input programs that my friends use and TAiwanese acquaintances go berzerk when I bust my bopo out- Besides, it looks cool 
I’ve also used it when teaching phonics at private lessons- showing how English uses several ways to spell something that is pronounced the same ie ㄠ can equal ou in ‘house’ and ow in ‘cow’. I really think it helped this kid gain a deeper understanding of how English spelling is not necessarily phonetic. And I play games with my private lessons with them using English spellings and me using bopo, they love it.
Sorry to piss ya off dnwolfgang :fume: but bopo fuckin rocks! haha.
Some of us do know and use ZhuYin. I don’t know your PinYin crap. 
If you’re going to be staying here awhile and you plan on speaking with locals in Mandarin (or Taiwanese), you might want to forget about that pinyin stuff and learn ZhuYin. Most locals have even worse PinYin ability than the foreign residents. 
EDIT: Forgot the smiley face.
Sorry to disappoint, but this comment does not piss me off ^.^
bopo does rock. So does pinyin. I find them both to be invaluable to learning mandarin in Taipei. Liking or even preferring one does not mean the other ‘wrong’ or ‘inconsistent’.
[quote=“dnwolfgang”][quote=“Icon”]1. We are lazy.
-
We do not use it in our daily lives/work
-
When we use it, we get shot down[/quote]
This one belongs in the original thread.[/quote]
A lot of these belong in the original thread. It get confusing when things are randomly temped.
[quote=“dnwolfgang”]I have to be honest. What the original OP is bitching about I couldn’t really give a shit, but when I see “[bopomofo/pinyin] is [easier/quicker/better/faster/stronger/sexier]” I have a mini fit of rage.
I am fluent in pinyin and bopomofo. they [strike]are the same damn thing[/strike] are equivalent in their purpose of providing symbols to associate sounds with chinese characters.[/quote]
I’ll see your mini fit of rage, and raise you a stroke-causing conniption fit. They EXACTLY the SAME GOD DAMN THING, and…
…aw crap. Left side of my body just went numb.
yeah, i have a few people that agree…wow…i think it’s a lifesaver for us foreigners…
Hm… that probably depends on your definition of “us”… 
And as regards the “know” problem (or, rather, the “not know” problem), help is in reach: a set of character cards for “bopomofo” will set you back NT$129 (or so) at any bookstore that sells school stationary, and you can be over your frustration after a weekend or so of playing those cards with a friend and using a writing pad for practice.
It seems to me there is a big reason: Taiwanese children! Millions of them… 
That is to say, “bopomofo” is the tool that helps Taiwanese children when they are learning to read Chinese characters (hanzi) the same way “kana” helps Japanese children when they learn those characters (kanji, kanzi) and “hangul” (“han-geul”, han’gŭl, hankul, chosongul, chosŏn’gŭl, jeongeum) is used as a tool when Koreans (nowadays mostly not children but only interested adults) learn those characters (hanja).
(The various spellings in parentheses serve only to illustrate the multiplicity of “Latin” letter usages in Asian countries other than Taiwan.)
“Transliterated” as in “transliterated with the Latin alphabet”: yes, that goes for a large number of languages on this planet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_7098
But an ISO standard is not a law, rule, or regulation, it is simply a map that one can use when one needs it - and Taiwanese people mostly don’t need it. (To make sure you don’t think i am making this up: “Romanisation is not normally taught in Taiwan’s public schools at any level. Consequently, most Taiwanese do not know how to romanise their names or addresses. Teachers use only Zhuyin (‘bopomofo’) for teaching and annotating the pronunciation of Mandarin.” - Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanizati … c_of_China)
Sorry to disappoint, but this comment does not piss me off ^.^
bopo does rock. So does pinyin. I find them both to be invaluable to learning mandarin in Taipei. Liking or even preferring one does not mean the other ‘wrong’ or ‘inconsistent’.[/quote]
Bopomofo has its utility, and I encourage foreigners here to learn it. But it’s not a romanization system.
I use Hanyu Pinyin for computer input, for romanizing vocab words, for writing most place names, for noting down pronunciations, and more.
I use bopomofo for reading pronunciations annotated with bopomofo, for discussing pronunciations with locals, and more.
Oh, and I use Wade-Giles for unknown personal names in Taiwan, as well as major place names like Taipei and Kaohsiung. (“Keelung” is something else altogether: it’s not even Wade-Giles. In Wade-Giles it would be Chilung.)
I hope this is not off topic in this thread, either, but “Keelung” represents is closer to the pronunciation along the lines of “Kelang”, which is said to be how Taiwanese people pronounce(d) it when you take Mandarin out of the equation: see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keelung
I hope this is not off topic in this thread, either, but “Keelung” represents is closer to the pronunciation along the lines of “Kelang”, which is said to be how Taiwanese people pronounce(d) it when you take Mandarin out of the equation: see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keelung[/quote]
Perhaps, but “Keelung” is more likely derived from the Mandarin pronunciation of the Imperial court, which was more conservative and preserved the older k-sound which had evolved into a j-sound during the course of the last few hundred years.
If you’re reading bopomofo, and you encounter a word you don’t know, how do you find out the meaning?
Are there bopomofo-to-English dictionaries?
Do you convert it to hanyu pinyin and look it up in a pinyin-to-English dictionary?
Do you try to guess the meaning from the context?
Do you ask somebody?
Some bopomofo kid books contain both Chinese and English versions in the same book. Do you use those books so you can figure out the meaning by looking at the English side?
Many books have characters along with the bopomofo. Do you look the word up in a character dictionary? (Dang, I don’t even remember if they have character-to-English dictionaries.)
Real question. I’m genuinely curious.