Wacky Romanization

Indeed! Well, they at least had the letters enough apart from the other half of the double U.

In Tainan, I once counted five different romanized renderings of 西門. But that was before we could take pictures with our telephones, haha! After the rule of Mayor Lia®, I reckon the English signage must be top notch now. Although, for all that bilingual b.s. he shovels, it may well be “West Gate Road” these-a-days.

Not Romanization (partial translation, I guess) but I found this sign amusing and thought others might appreciate it. The attempt at translating signs totally defeats the purpose. It’s as useful as the advice I received my first year here from a GP to visit a specialist across from the Small North (小北) store on West Gate Road (西門路). Luckily I loved studying maps and learning basic Chinese characters and their meanings.

Signage in Hualien (for a visitor, at least) sucks! Often absent, otherwise hidden.

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Never seen that spelling before…

On the official posters it’s Hanyu Pinyin, so TT, why oh why?

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So, in the same article, they refer to “Tshing Shan Festival”, and two lines down, refer to Qingshan Temple? And those two are the same term?

Because Hanyu is from Choina.

The road where I live has signs in, I think, three different romanisations.

W.-G.: Hsyüeh-Fu Rd.
Tongyong: Syue Fu-Rd.
Hanyu: Xuefu-Rd.

How cute, an “ü” :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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It’s cute until you’re a tourist and you get lost because the local government can’t be assed to provide a unified romanisation across the city.

Well, welcome to Taiwan, land of diversity

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The lack of standardization is impressive!
This is in the same street junction:


Syuecheng or Xuecheng?!
Guocin or Guoqin?!

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It used to be a KMT/DPP thing. Northern Taiwan with PRC pinyin and Southern Taiwan with Tongyong or whatever didn’t smell like China. Like 西子灣 being Sizihwan or even (I saw it) Hsizu Bay :sweat_smile:.

My friends often have different surnames from their siblings because of random romanisation. Like Deng/Teng, Hsu/Syu, etc. Guess the headache if they decide to move overseas :rofl: :rofl:

According to passport policy, family members should use the same transliteration for their surnames to avoid confusion. It says so right on the passport form.

Still have to meet a family that uses the same romanisation across all members :rofl: :rofl:

My wife’s family all use the same romanization of their surname. Part of their family, which has a different surname with the same pronunciation also uses the same English romanization.

That’s a Sansia Fan Favourite. The Tongyong is from Taipei County.

It ends as soon as you hit the Shulin border.

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Not really. These are still in Sanxia, not close to the border!

Creative romanization

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