Right, but Joe Schmoe isn’t familiar with the particularly different uses of the letters in Chinese romanisation as much as he would be with Japan cause Japanese romanisation at least follows the basic rules of roman letters. People can read maps of Japan quite easily without any training. Pinyin wasn’t made with foreign tourism in mind in 1958 China. So attempting to use it in a place where it wasn’t meant to be used is…wrong IMO.
There are only three countries that have Chinese as their official language. China, Taiwan, Singapore. The only reason why it’s an international standard is because they are so massive and influential. This makes the ‘International standard’ decided by ONE country alone.
I just feel like you are putting too much emphasis on romanization’s ability to convey accurate Chinese pronunciation without any training. I don’t think that’s the most important role. Standardization is far more important. There is no romanization that can adequately prompt accurate pronunciation from a non-trained individual. Just focus on using the version that is most widely accepted and used.
Standard Japanese isn’t phonemically challenging on the same level as any kind of Chinese. Japanese has some phonemes that technically don’t exist in (say) English, but the closest equivalents serve the purpose well enough, e.g. [f] for [ɸ], hence romaji “f”.
In Mandarin, you’ve got more vowels than you can fit in the Roman alphabet, you’ve got phonemes that cause confusion even for native speakers (/s/ vs. /sh/ and so on), and of course you’ve got tones, and you’ve got more homophones than anyone can keep track of. And you’ve got multiple romanizations, and even the archaic ones are still influential (Peking and all that), whereas that’s rarely an issue for Japanese. So I really don’t blame tourists for struggling more with Chinese maps than with Japanese ones.
As a general rule, in the 21st century, local economies need global connectivity in order to thrive.
This would make it even harder for foreigners. At least hanyu pinyin gets you close enough to the city name in Chinese 95% of the time so that locals will understand you.
But on the other hand. People I bring to Taiwan have trouble remembering where they went because the name flows in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t mean anything to them, IE, doesn’t register cause the name introduces difficulty for them…
But the green viewpoint ignores the fact that schools across the world are teaching Mandarin. My niece learns at school and she learns pinyin. It’s already the standard
Schools in Taiwan and across the world teach US spelling when learning English. Should the rest of us in UK-spelling countries just throw in the towel because the US is an absolute behemoth?
You’re not wrong. I’m offering an alternative viewpoint.
