Hi,
The sound of the initial “r” in Mandarin (Pinyin) can be very tough. It is listed as the fourth and final consonant in a series of retroflexed initial consonants, which also include zh, ch and sh. Without a vowel attached, they are written as zhi, chi, shi and ri. Thus the “i” sound in these is silent (unlike ji, qi and xi). To pronounce these sounds correctly, you must curl your tongue while you attempt to sound out these consonants. In the case of “r,” you will have some breath out of it as you attempt to pronounce the English “r” while your tongue is to be curled, and thus that is why the initial was romanized as a “j” in Wade-Giles.
The Yale system writes these as jr, chr, shr and rr.
The sound of the initial “r” as used in such words like ren2 (people) or Ri4ben3 (the Chinese transliteration of “Japan”) is the only one where you’ll get a taste of both the English “r” sound as well as the French “j” sound (the latter of which is mistakenly used by CNN and BBC reporters, among others, for the sound of the “j” in Beijing). That is proven when the system devised by British scholar Francis Wade and modified by Herbert Giles, the appropriately-named Wade-Giles, romanizes this “r” sound as a “j.” I believe it’s thought that Wade and Giles and their disciples have heard this “r” sound like “j”; so why else would the Pinyin “ren2” be spelled “jen2” in the Wade-Giles system?
~Ben
