Which romanization is more closer to the Taiwanese language in terms of pronunciation? I notice that most cab drivers pronounce the address in the card I give them differrently from the pinyin. Is the wade-giles more accurate for taiwanese and pinyin more accurate for mandarin?
Oops misread the question, delete me 
But I feel it is wrong from the start.
Why not use the tapes instead.
Shengmar, read the question and stop trying to sell us Zhang Daolong’s Miraculous Tape Recorder for a moment.
Ken, it depends. If you mean Taiwanese as opposed to Taiwanese Mandarin, neither are - to my knowledge - all that close. If you mean Mandarin, that’s still a bit of a debate, but I’d side with Hanyu Pinyin. The thing is, though, that there’s the added issue of the Taiwanese Mandarin accent, and then possibly on top of that, further accented Mandarin thanks to the speaker being a native speaker of Taiwanese rather than Mandarin. Those could explain the differences you’re noticing.
I am, of course, assuming you know Pinyin and are expecting the right sounds from ‘x’, ‘c’, ‘q’, etc.
They’re both equally accurate. Probably any discrepancies arise from taxi drivers speaking non-standard Mandarin.
Like Jin San Nan Lu, instead of Jin Shan Nan Lu.
[quote=“Tetsuo”]Shengmar, read the question and stop trying to sell us Zhang Daolong’s Miraculous Tape Recorder for a moment.
[/quote]
In China, there is a saying: 买椟还珠， or 郑人买履。
Do you need to bring a ruler with you to buy a pair of shoes?
No, but you do need a pair of feet.
Learning Chinese without a romanization system (I don’t care if it’s pinyin, Wade Giles, or Yiddish) is like buying shoes without having feet. The ends of your legs will fit inside, and you will think you are ready to walk. Yet you will stumble around like a cripple the rest of your life.
Well, they’re both accurate when used properly. Unfortunately both systems - WG moreso than HYPY - get some horrible treatment on occasions here. “Qilian” for example - is that actually “Qilian” or rather “Qili’an”? (Don’t answer, I already know 
) And to put the same name into Massacred Wade-Giles, as is often used here, would “Chilien” be (Pinyin) “Qilian” or “Zhilian” (or even “Jilian”)?
Personally I prefer Pinyin when only concerned with romanization, but if it has to look pretty with it, WG all the way.
Thanks guys for the bit of enlightenment! I guess it will depend individually on how the drivers speak non-standard mandarin or not.
[quote=“Naruwa”]No, but you do need a pair of feet.
Learning Chinese without a romanization system (I don’t care if it’s pinyin, Wade Giles, or Yiddish) is like buying shoes without having feet. The ends of your legs will fit inside, and you will think you are ready to walk. Yet you will stumble around like a cripple the rest of your life.[/quote]
How about phonetic systems like bopomofo? It won’t take more than two or three weeks to learn the 38 different sounds. In some regards you might be better off learning without using romanization, because you’re bound to sound like you just use English abc’s to pronounce Chinese.
Sure, bopomofo is fine, in principle, as a Chinese learning tool, though it’s not too practical after the fact since you won’t see restaurants, street signs and such using that mark-up. 
Why would I need it after the fact if I have learned Chinese?
Pinyin, Wade Giles, either one is fine for signs doesn’t really matter does it? But if you want to learn proper pronunciation without all this confusing romanization I think bopomofo is the way to go. I have yet to figure out how the hell ‘tz’ or ‘ts’ is supposed to represent some sound and I always screw it up…but if it is in bopomofo I don’t seem to have this problem. 
You WOULDN’T need it after you learned, but you could use it as a tool in early stages.
My personal preference is for Hanyu Pinyin, the international standard. The mistake most learners make is in thinking A,B, and C are exlusively English letters, which they obviously aren’t. Using Zhu Yin Fu Hao symbols in place of letters can avoid this potential confusion, and is its only obvious advantage, IMO.
Nevertheless, that system will be of no use outside of Taiwan or on the streets of life. Acceptable tool to facilitate learning pronunciation? Sure, why not. Besides that? Not much use. I’ll opt for the system with multiple benefits.
Hanyu Pinyin: The gift that keeps on giving. 
Most people who study Mandarin do so because they hope to be able to understand and use the spoken language. A phonetic system that is used consistently is the most useful tool that a student will ever have. It allows him to assosciate sounds with symbols making them both easier to remember. Pinyin is not based on a strictly English interpretion of the alphabet so Pinyin should be taught from the beginning to discourage students from making up their own systems that they will have to forget later. The Mainland Chinese government has chosen Pinyin. Millions of Chinese people know it. Foriegn Universities use it in their Mandarin programs. There are plenty of Pinyin/English and English/Pinyin dictionairies available. It has been demonstrated that people who learn pinyin first improve faster in terms of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. And you will often find that people who studied characters say that they wish they had spent more time learning pinyin properly. There are no longer any but idiotic arguements against Pinyin. People who refuse to learn and use it are just introducing unneccesary confusion to an already complex topic. A Mandarin teacher doesn’t use Pinyin is like an English teacher who doesn’t use the alpahbet. Completely ridiculous.
So if all your friends jump off a bridge does that make it right??? or the best thing to do?? when in doubt, bob, ask your mother…
Both Hanyu Pinyin and Wade-Giles were designed for Mandarin, not Taiwanese. So the language question doesn’t really enter into this.
Most cab drivers, indeed most Taiwanese as a whole, don’t know any romanization system and thus may misinterpret something written in any of the systems, especially if the address is on a relatively small street. This has nothing to do with the accuracy of Hanyu Pinyin vs that of Wade-Giles; it’s just a matter of education.
Note, however, that the equivalent accuracy of the systems is only valid when they’re written correctly, which is something that almost never happens with Wade-Giles. (See my Web page on bastardized Wade-Giles.) So, at least in practice, Hanyu Pinyin is unquestionably the more reliable system.
If you’re in Taipei, have addresses written in Hanyu Pinyin, not Wade-Giles, because, miracle of miracles, Pinyin is what’s actually used on the street signs of the capital. But be sure to learn Hanyu Pinyin yourself so you can pronounce the names to aid your romanization-challenged taxi drivers.
Actually Vanneyel the fact that intelligent people everywhere are adopting pinyin is exactly what makes it the right thing for all of us to do as well. The more people who use it the more usefull it will become.
Pinyin and Wade-Giles are linguistically equivalent. Pinyin will get you farther because more materials and newer materials are available in it. Plus, millions of people in the PRC can write Pinyin more or less accurately (probably more accurately than the poor Taiwanese who are caught unsuspecting in this horror of competing Romanization systems).
For Taiwanese, I much prefer Church Romanization. It’s not very pretty, but it is more logical than the other systems for Taiwanese IMHO, particularly the ones that add a silent “q” to show that this syllable has something to do with food (or whatever – I forget the precise details but it was a very complicated system).
I don’t think Romanization is bad. My accent was good enough to fool 49% of the people on a recent survey (when I was trying to sound like a Mainlander, BTW) into thinking I was a native speaker (I was also reading a passage, so there was no problem with using the wrong words or making other mistakes that would tell me out - mind you I’m not claiming to sound native most of the time!) But it does show that a foreigner who was educated in Chinese using Pinyin can easily achieve an accurate pronunciation in Chinese despite myths to the contrary.
And, any Romanization system is a heck of a lot easier to type than bopomofo…not to mention that tonal spelling is impossible using bopomofo, but works quite nicely in the famous TOP (Tonally Orthographic pinyin) system. (Well, not famous, but I’m workin’ on it!) 
If you want to accurately describe the sounds of Taiwanese Mandarin as spoken by flip-flop-bedecked individuals drooling betelnut juice, I recommend the International Phonetic Alphabet in all its glory, using a narrow transcription. Hours o’ fun for all… 
Intelligent people everyone once adopted the belief that the world was flat, that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that cutting people and letting them bleed a while was a valid medical technique.