Should Taiwanese learn pinyin?

Language Learning Chinese
21

I’m not so sure about that (speed, that is, not keystrokes). As a matter of fact, I’m inclined to believe that the opposite is true. Touch typing doesn’t work nearly so well for most people once their fingers have to go more than one row of keys above the fingers’ home positions. Because zhuyin has many more zimu than a QWERTY keyboard has Roman letters, people wishing to type using zhuyin have to stretch up to the top row of number keys extremely often, resulting in losses in accuracy and speed.[/quote]
I can only offer my own personal anecdotal evidence as I’m fairly adept at typing in both BPMF and Pinyin. Many moons ago, I took a course in touch typing (in English) as a junior high school student and thus, can type roman characters without much thought. When I first started to type Chinese using BPMF, I adopted the ETEN keyboard layout because there’s a good correlation between the sounds of BMPF and the roman characters. As with anything, typing speeds improve with time and over time, my BPMF typing has become a lot faster than Pinyin input.

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but I’ll restate some of the advantages to BPMF typing. First, there’s fewer keystrokes per character as already indicated. Second, the order of entry of BMPF is unimportant. This is a big time saver because a very common mistake when typing fast is not that the wrong keys were hit, but that they were hit in the wrong order. Thus, “jiang” typed fast may very well end up being “jaing” and you gotta start over. In BPMF, this isn’t an issue. ㄐㄧㄤ can be typed as ㄧㄤㄐ and it still works. The correct sounding character is still displayed. This offers a unique advantage of hitting keys simultaneously. Let’s take “sang” for example. In Pinyin, it necessarily requires four keystrokes in the correct order. In BMPF, since order does not matter, I can hit ㄙ and ㄤ simultaneously, reducing the typing time to effectively one keystroke. Whether it ends up being ㄙㄤ or ㄤㄙ is irrelevant.

This should more than make up for any speed reduction by having to type using four rows. Besides, I’ve never had much of a problem with four rows. Once you practice something enough times, it becomes second nature. For English typists, the numbers row is usually hard to use not due the lack of innate ability, but rather the lack of practice as there is rarely a need to move your fingers up there. But take a look at professional typists and you can see that these ladies (mostly ladies) type the top row just as effortlessly as the bottom three.

22

I think about this question for a while. I think whether Taiwanese should learn Hanyu pinyin depends on different situation.

Children should learn Hanyu pinyin instead of bopomofo for internationalization purpose.

For Adults, I think most people here even can’t use bopomofo well because they really don’t need to use it anymore. For people who are satisfied with their situation here in Taiwan, they won’t feel the need to learn Hanyu pinyin.

For people who need to reach out of Taiwanese system, they will urge themself to learn it. And I think transferring from bopomofo to Hanyu pinyin is not that difficult for them.

23

I disagree what you said.
Who will not reach out of Taiwanese system?
Everyone has the chance to use Hanyu pinyin ,even they just travel to foreign country.They need to read the signs.
Most Taiwanese use zhuyin system .Bopomo isn’t a problem to them.Unless they were educated by japanese system.

So since it is easy to learn Hanyu pinyin(in fact,it is ),no need just the kids have to learn.

24

My neice is only 7 years old.
She can type 120 words a minutes in zhuyinsystem without seeing the keyboard.I think she got used to it. [/code]

25

[quote=“wisher”]I disagree what you said.
Who will not reach out of Taiwanese system?
Everyone has the chance to use Hanyu Pinyin ,even they just travel to foreign country.They need to read the signs.
Most Taiwanese use zhuyin system .Bopomo isn’t a problem to them.Unless they were educated by japanese system.

So since it is easy to learn Hanyu Pinyin(in fact,it is ),no need just the kids have to learn.[/quote]

I think you misunderstood what she meant. She means that the people that need to learn Zhuyinfuhao will learn it out of necessity. People who are just “passing by” will most likely have a better chance of learning Hanyupinyin then Zhuyinfuhao because of the alphabet system.

I think it is just harder for Taiwanese to adapt to pinyin because it is relatively new and un-used in Taiwan. Unlike Japan where Romanji was taught since the end of World War II and it is the preferred method of inputting characters into computers unlike Taiwanese who mostly use Zhuyin to input characters. I am sure if Japan still used kana to input characters into computers they would have a hard time using Romanji because it is not used on a daily/semi-daily basis.

Even if Taiwan adopted teaching Hanyu Pinyin in the schools it would still not become common usage until atleast 20-30 years later when the first few generation of people who were taught pinyin are the primary age group of the country 25-55ish I think.

Unfortunately, I do not think this will happen in the near future because of the cross-straight relationships… but that is another story.

IMHO I do think Taiwan should adopt and teach Hanyu Pinyin, only because it is the most widely used and common type of romanization… atleast it seems so. Of course, if most people were using tongyong pinyin people would be commenting on how horrible Hanyu Pinyin is.

26

Right,I misread again…bu hao yi si. :blush:

Using pinyin or not has been brought up many year ago.
But no any conclusion in the end.
Only the Taipei city government decided to quit Tongyong pinyin .
Taiwanese should learn pinyin will be a trend,I think.
Many parents ask me to teach their children the Hanyu pinyin.

27

sjcma, perhaps I’m not understanding you correctly. A lot of what you’re describing sounds to me like it’s based based not on any inherent differences between zhuyin or Pinyin but rather on particular software applications that for the most part could be made to work for either of the two systems.

And while studies at the high end (e.g., secretaries and professional typists) are interesting, I don’t think they tell too much about the experience of the vast majority of those sitting down at a keyboard.

But when I took my typing class back in junior high it was in the days of manual typewriters, and when I had my first programming course we had to use punch cards. So it may be that dinosaurs like me aren’t the best judges of what works for the younger generation, who’ve been raised with computers and have grown up with keyboards. :grandpa:

28

I did think about software implementation issues but at the end, that’s not the problem. Can you type a character in Pinyin and have the roman characters entered without regard to order? For most, yes. For example, let’s look at “jiang”. There are no other possible Pinyin combinations for those five letters. For some, no. “en” and “ne” are different characters. “na” and “an” are different as well. Same goes for “re” and “er”, “ang” and “gan”, “gou” and “guo”, “lou” and “luo”, and so on. Because roman characters are fewer in number than zhuyin zimu, romanization schemes are forced to use longer strings of characters with fewer unique combinations.

That’s why I offered my own personal experience. I had been typing proficiently in English for more than 10 years before picking up BPMF typing. Nowadays, BPMF is definitely faster for me and the fourth row doesn’t bother me. Bringing up professional typists was simply to point out that those who practice using four rows a lot will not be hindered by four rows. Thus, those that type BPMF a lot will not be bothered by four rows. Wisher’s niece is another data point. In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not a professional typist. ：）

I learned on manual typewriters as well and I still think BPMF is faster than Pinyin. Not initally mind you, but after some practice (like when learning to type the roman alphabet initially), things become second nature.

If you grow up typing four rows, that extra row will not cause any significant slowdown (if at all) while the savings in keystrokes per character is a real advantage for BPMF in typing speed. For those that grew up typing only the roman alphabet, overcoming that four-row learning curve may not be worthwhile.

29

I’m still trying to figure out just how the entries in incorrect order work in the practical sense. You’re talking about the production of texts in Hanzi, not just individual characters one by one, right?

I don’t deny that for you typing on the number row may not lead to lower speeds or greater inaccuracy. But as a general principle for the majority of those using a keyboard (even with practice) – I’d still want to see a study before making any concessions on that point.

It’s surprising that there don’t seem to be more scientific studies on this, given how much of the time people in the developed world spend at computers. It may be that scientists, having noted how much vitriol and how little resolution there has been over the subject of Dvorak vs. QWERTY keyboards, have decided to pursue less contentious subjects.

But if there should prove to be real advantages overall to typing with zhuyin instead of Pinyin, perhaps we’ll need another thread: Should Chinese learn zhuyin? :smiley:

30

For what it’s worth, I also find zhuyin typing to be a bit faster. Even though I learned pinyin first and I’m more comfortable with it in general, I can type zhuyin about 10-15% faster. I’ve tried timing myself.

31

I find that I type in pinyin much faster than my Taiwanese friends do in zhuyin or wushame input methods. I guess it really depends on your typing speed anyway. My friends could be hunt and peck type people whereas I touch type. I think that with less practice a native English speaker should be much faster using pinyin and I doubt that investing time into getting up to speed using zhuyin would be that worthwhile. :idunno:

32

When I first came here from America, my church had hymn books using Hanyu pinyin. It was easy for me to sing the hymns. About a year later, they changed to the Wade-Giles pinyin, and I’m still struggling with it after 4 years! I wish they’d go back to Hanyu pinyin, and all other pinyin publications for that matter.

33

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34

Should they Taiwanese learn this?
No waste off time, I was not able to learn it myself so I skiped it and jumped rith to bo, po, fo, mo.

By the way bo,po,fo, mo sounds would be writen bø, pø, fø, mø in norwegian.
The pinying as made by english speakers for english speakers and the roman alpabeth is not that universal since every country have diferent way to say the leters. The american R sounf like aaaaaarrrrrrrr to me, the english don’t have mutch sound, while the Norwegians, Spanish and Italians have the nice roling R from the tongue witch is imposible for the chinese to make.

In the begining when I learned chinese I tryed to use my own pinying using æi(ei),øn(en),tø(t),å(o),ø(e)

For other then native english speakers learning chinese it’s useless.

35

[quote=“Stian”]Should they Taiwanese learn this?
No waste off time, I was not able to learn it myself so I skiped it and jumped rith to bo, po, fo, mo.

By the way bo,po,fo, mo sounds would be writen bø, pø, fø, mø in norwegian.
The pinyin as made by English speakers for English speakers and the roman alpabeth is not that universal since every country have diferent way to say the leters. The American R sounf like aaaaaarrrrrrrr to me, the English don’t have mutch sound, while the Norwegians, Spanish and Italians have the nice roling R from the tongue witch is imposible for the Chinese to make.

In the begining when I learned Chinese I tryed to use my own pinyin using æi(ei),øn(en),tø(t),å(o),ø(e)

For other then native English speakers learning Chinese it’s useless.[/quote]

Sorry, but you are just plain wrong with that last point.

The system needs to learned, like any foreign language. If I try pronouncing “j” in Norwegian words (Vinjesvingen, Hjelde etc.) the same as we do in English, I wouldn’t make much sense, right? I have to learn the correct pronunciation first. Same with Pinyin. If you learn the system it works fine, no matter where you come from. I’ve met people from Sweden, Russia, Korea, Japan, Honduras and Germany who learned Mandarin through Hanyu Pinyin and they seem to have had no great problems with it. :idunno:

Hanyu Pinyin was designed by Mandarin speakers for Mandarin speakers - the English had nothing to do with it. If it was made by the English, do you really think they would have put “q”, “c”, “zh” and so on in there?

36

[quote=“Stian”]By the way bo,po,fo, mo sounds would be writen bø, pø, fø, mø in norwegian.[/quote]By that logic in English they should be written ber,per,fer,mer. But they’re not. It’s like learning any language, you have to learn the letters too. Pinyin is not English.

37

In Hong Kong, it was only in the recent past that they began teaching Cantonese with some form of pronunciation system. Therefore, you don’t need to learn the “letters” to learn Chinese, you just need to learn the characters in order to read.

Many in Hong Kong were changing the pronunciation of the words, causing many younger people to pronounce some sounds the same as other sounds, like pronouncing “n” as “l”, which causes confusion among “traditionalists” who believe language should remain the same and not evolve. It is for this reason that a pronunciation system is now taught in Hong Kong.

38

[quote=“twocs”]

In Hong Kong, it was only in the recent past that they began teaching Cantonese with some form of pronunciation system. Therefore, you don’t need to learn the “letters” to learn Chinese, you just need to learn the characters in order to read.

Many in Hong Kong were changing the pronunciation of the words, causing many younger people to pronounce some sounds the same as other sounds, like pronouncing “n” as “l”, which causes confusion among “traditionalists” who believe language should remain the same and not evolve. It is for this reason that a pronunciation system is now taught in Hong Kong.[/quote]
Actually, I’ve done pretty large sample surveys that included questions on use of Cantonese phonetic symbols in Hong Kong, and pretty well nobody teaches them in primary schools. I know of a couple of schools that teach them during after school activities, but none that are using them in Chinese classes the way HYPY or MPS are used for Mandarin. I don’t think it’s because of a lack of systems that can be used. There are a few systems around, my favourite being the one promoted by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. The following are the arguments I always hear for why Canto pinyin shouldn’t be taught in schools:

  1. “Canto is not a “standard” language and so there is no need to teach pinyin for it. None of the systems around captures all of the sounds of Canto and there are too many geographic variations.” Bullshit I say. HYPY and MPS do not and never have accurately captured all the phonemes of any language. The Beijing dialect has some sounds that aren’t represented in MPS or HYPY. Why would that stop anybody from using those systems?

  2. “Native Canto speakers don’t need Canto pinyin. If you want to teach it to all the poor Pakistani or Nepali kids in the schools, then that’s fine, but our kids don’t need it.” Bullsit, I say again. I think anybody here who has reached a certain level of proficiency in PTH and who has observed “native” children using it can attest to how useful of a literacy building aid it can be. Beijing kids use HYPY. I don’t see why Hong Kongers couldn’t benefit from using Canto pinyin.

  3. “Kids will confuse Canto pinyin with English phonics or HYPY [which are the only languages we really respect]” BS, again. Hong Kongers, especially adults but also primary school kids, have extreme difficulty in learning HYPY or English phonics. I think it would be very difficult to “prove” it, but I believe that the reason they have such difficulty in learning HYPY is that they are being introduced to two new things at once: a language (PTH), and the concept that sounds can be represented with symbols. Trying to make someone sensitive to the sounds of a second language is pretty hard if they don’t already have a certain sensitivity toward the sounds of their own language. Most Hong Kongers don’t really recognize that Canto has distinct tones and that they can be classified, and I don’t know anybody outside of Canto teachers or people really interested in phonology who can actually describe the tones. Most Hong Kongers I know cannot recognize minimal pairs in thier own dialect. To me, it’s little wonder that they have no declarative or operational knowledge of the phonemes and tones of PTH. Why would they? They’ve never analyzed their own language.

Most of the nutters who are always ranting about “lazy sounds” that I’ve run into think that the best way to “correct” the “problem” is to teach more classical poetry and to teach kids to refer to dictionaries that give characters that have the same or similar pronunciation to the one being looked up. I think these sorts of people are completely in the dark ages and just don’t get how phonetic symbols work.

You bring up an interesting point, though about romanization possibly serving to “freeze” the drift of consonants and vowels. We’ve all seen how dialect speakers might learn and be able to use phonetic symbols for Mandarin, but still read certain symbols the wrong way, such as reading the sh- as s- by Southern Min speakers. What I’m a bit curious about is whether or not there will be a shift in vowel or consonant sounds pronounced by “native speakers” now that they are all using HYPY and a lot of people are having to do the Putonghua proficiency exam. Certain folks on the mainland would certainly like to prevent any such evolution, and maybe they can through testing and technology. But my question is “WTF for?”

39

I don’t really see the point in Taiwanese people learning pinyin. Bopomofo is a perfectly good system and to change over now would be incredibly difficult. Also, as an English teacher, I imagine that students who learn to speak Chinese using Pinyin will then have difficulty learing to form the correct sounds in English. For example, q, z, c in pinyin all have different sounds to the Englsih.

I can understand the benefits for foreigners living in Taiwan but we are a minority. I often ask my girlfriend how to say something in Chinese but i don’t always get the pinyin correct but rather than expecting her to learn pinyin I should really stop being so lazy and learn bopomofo.

Though I do think that the government ought sort place names and road signs, or at least choose one standard and stick to it. The variations from maps, to road signs to station signs can be insanely confusing.

40

The government has already committed itself to phasing out bopomofo - the problem is that they want to replace it with Tongyong, which is a waste of space itself. I don’t have an opinion as to whether they should do away with bopomofo or not, but I don’t think it would be “incredibly difficult”. Neither Hanyu Pinyin nor Bopomofo are at all difficult to learn - and if you know one well, you can learn the other in a very short space of time. As a precedent - have a look at Turkey’s adoption of the roman alphabet to write Turkish - that was the whole country that had to change, not just a few primary school teachers. Bopomofo and Pinyin would exist side-by-side in dictionaries until no-one is left who remembers what those funny squiggles mean, at which point it will become a historical curiosity like Shavian and Taiwanese kana.

Taiwanese kids now struggle with English “sh”, “z”, short “i” etc - because those sounds don’t exist in Mandarin. Forming the sounds doesn’t have much to do with the letters. I imagine that kids will get confused sometimes between the pronunciation of a letter in English and Chinese, but that’s par for the course when learning a new foreign language - the same thing happened to me when I started French and German as a kid - but those problems are at worst minor and get ironed out very quickly (within the first few weeks of study).

Amen to that.