Speak Pinyin

Today i learned something really new. There is a way to spell pinyin in Mainland China vocally that is very differet to the way English people might speak it. I suddenly understand why qr and I are have so much problems about pinyin

Huh ? Can you give us some examples how it’s different ?

Just as the roman letters of the alphabets of English, French, German, Italian are given different names/pronunciations among the various languages, so too are the letters in the Hanyu Pinyin alphabet. This is only proper, as the names of the letters should be in accord with the phonetic system of the language they represent. So of course Hanyu Pinyin’s x isn’t pronounced eks or eeks but in a way that reflects Mandarin.

Um, I did learn hanyu pinyin from school. But as much as I know I think it’s the way its spelt.

like you guys say Sun Tzu or something and pronounce it as “Sonne Zoo”
But in Hanyu Pinyin, it’s “Sun Zi” which reflects it more clearly : Soon Tzi. And the tz is well, the chinese Z.

Imagine, if you will, a brummie or a cockney or a scouser or a geordie…whatever on holiday in spain and they want a ‘pina coldada’. If they are untrained in the spanish phonetic system, they are bounbd to get it wrong, and sound like an idoit to boot.

This is exactly the same when the untrained try to say mandarin words using pinyin. Just because it looks like an English ‘C’ doesnt at all mean that is is spoken in the same way. For me, I pinyin is easier than the taiwanese phonetic system simply becasue I could learn it faster than I would with symbols I couldnt immediately recognise. I learnt that much from learning 3 different Japanese phonetic systems.

A Canadian guy who I work with lives in min2 sheng1 east rd. after a year in Taiwan and freqently taking taxis he still hasn’t bothered to learn how to pronounce it correctly…he ‘read’ the (toneless) pinyin street signs that Mr Ma so kindly erected in the said road and that was enough for him. He still gets irate when the taxi driver drops him off on min2 quan2 east rd…or worse still- lin2 sen1(?) north road.

My point isn’t that I think I’m great because I can say a few street names correctly enough to get me home…no, my point is that no matter what system is used, you still need to be trained in how to correctly read it.

The original poster, bless him, has just worked it out… the hard way and thought it was revolutionary enough to post it on here. I don’t know…I just thought it was common sense.