I think I got offered that one at Shi Da once. I politely turned it down 
HG
funny how several fluent speakers are arguing to what’s best,how are we,beginners,supposed to get a grip?
To which fluent speakers’ argument dost thou refer, oh one with edible legs best pan fried in olive oil?
[quote=“derek1978”]Pin Yin is for wusies :raspberry:
If you want to go around confusing your brain by using a romanized alphabet system to read madarin…by all means knock yourself out. But, I warn you that you are going to one huge headache at the end of the day.
If you want to read actual chinese characters the way they should be read, then use the MPS system. Learning BPMF may look intimidating at first, but it will stop you from brain reverting back to English pronounciation. Take some time to learn BPMF (most can do it in a week or two) and you will be speaking more correctly.[/quote]
Oh, brother! Yeah, that’s why native English speakers are incapable of learning to speak French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc., unless they cross out all writing in those languages from their textbooks and dictionaries. Curse those languages for using the same alphabet as us! Those darn letters just don’t always mean the same thing ya might think! Unlike learning, say, Chinese characters, it just takes too damn much mental effort to figure out that different letters of the alphabet can represent different sounds in different languages. 
Fortunately for us, in written English each letter represents only one phoneme, so we never have to deal with that kind of thinking that Pinyin might compel. 
I think bpmf is a great help for some (like you), but it’s not for everyone. When I teach my son, it’s definitely bpmf. The reason is because I had already started English phonics with him and he had all the sounds of the English alphabet memorized. I did try Pinyin, but he got confused. With enough time, I’m sure he would be able to separate the two. But given the fact that his learning material will come mostly from Taiwan, I thought that it would be better to skip the temporary confusion and just dive into bpmf right away.
Cranky laowai has a point, because obviously, people do learn quite well how to pronounce things in other roman alphabet based languages. But it also doesn’t take away from the fact that for some, bpmf is a better tool for learning Mandarin than Pinyin.
Dagnammit! Where’s a hot-coal emoticon when you need it? 
OTOH, my friend DB might want to rake me over hot coals for admitting that I think marking tones isn’t such a big deal in many cases.
Maybe not a hot-coal emoticon for this, but what you wrote isn’t quite right either. It reminds me of the Wikipedia entry on Pinyin, which I’ve pretty much given up trying to save. (Someone even recently removed that entry’s link to my website as “obvious spam.” :s )
OK, back to the subject. Because of Pinyin’s abbreviated forms, such as ui for uei, the tone mark does not always go over “the vowel that ‘carries’ the syllable.” In the case, for example, of shui, the primary vowel is e; but there just ain’t no e in shui, so there’s no way to put a tone mark over that letter.
Here are the basics of where to put tone marks in Pinyin:
[ul][li]a and e trump all other vowels and always take the tone mark. (There are no Mandarin syllables in Hanyu Pinyin that contain both a and e.)[/li]
[li]In the combination ou, o takes the mark.[/li]
[li]In all other cases, the final vowel takes the mark.[/li][/ul]
Yup.
Another good reason for BPMF is the fact few Taiwan computers have pinyin input set up.
HG
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Another good reason for BPMF is the fact few Taiwan computers have Pinyin input set up.
HG[/quote]
If it’s Windows XP, that’s easy to change!
By the way, what phonetic input systems do Cantonese speakers use? Do Cantonese speakers have their own version of BPMF? How do they learn Cantonese phonetic representations of characters?
Most Cantonese speakers do not know the phonetic representation of characters. Those that care to type in Chinese learn either Cangjie or they have to pick up Cantonese phonetics on their own. Else, they use a handwriting input system. HK versions of Windows often come with a Cantonese phonetic input system. If not, it can be purchased aftermarket.
The two major phonetic systems in Hong Kong are Standard Cantonese Pinyin and Jyutping (aka The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme). The former is the one that’s been officially adopted by the government.
Sacriledge!!! 
Gimme the code (link format). I’ll put it back and argue the case for keeping it. 
My god, what the hell are they talking about in the pronunciation section? How do you “slowly pass (a sound) backwards along the tongue until it is entirely clear of the tongue tip”? I don’t even know where to begin with what’s wrong with that sentence.
Let us know where you need help; a flurry of consensus on your points will help make them more permanent.
I was amazed to learn how many Canto colleagues do not know how to input Chinese. Cangjie is the preferred among those that do.
HG
To the person who said native English speakers have trouble learning other languages because we try to assign our ideas about how the consonants/vowels sound to the other languages…that’s a ridiculous generalization. I, for one, have never had any trouble learning other languages and treat learning foreign languages as a hobby (something fun to do in my free time). Also, I have absolutely no trouble with Pinyin and I just learned it by reading Chinese reference books. Each Chinese reference book includes a guide on how to pronounce Pinyin letters and after you’ve taken the 5 minutes or so it takes to learn that you can easily learn how to pronounce Chinese words from Pinyin-based dictionaries or guidebooks (the tones are the only problem after that).
The other beauty of pinyin is if you ever have to deal with the majority of the world’s Chinese speakers, they usually understand it right down to the quirky little details beyond mere “spelling”.
But don’t be too hard on Dezz now, remember Taiwan’s his first real exposure, of course they’re gonna tell him that crap. They tried it on me and if you’ve read this far they probably tried it on you, too. I arrived at upper intermediate I think they called it so bo po mofe was an option I casually refused.
HG
[quote=“derek1978”] If you want to read actual chinese characters the way they should be read, then use the MPS system. Learning BPMF may look intimidating at first, but it will stop you from brain reverting back to English pronounciation. Take some time to learn BPMF (most can do it in a week or two) and you will be speaking more correctly.
By the way…the reason why 謝謝 (xieˋ xie) sounds different is not because of the spelling, but because of the tones. It is pronounced 4th tone & 1st tone. This makes the first “xie” quick and sharp in a downward sound and the 2nd “xie” in a monotone drawn out sound.
One of the biggest mistakes we make (as westerners) is adjusting our pitch rather than our tone when we attempt to say the tones. Remember, it doesnt matter what pitch you use. The most important is the tone.[/quote]
Pitch is an element of tone. We tell someone not to speak to us “in that tone” rather than “in that pitch” because it isn’t just the pitch that we find offensive but the also the volume and perhaps the way certain words are drawn out or shortened as the case may be. Derek’s advise is exactly wrong.
And it is xie4xie5 not xie4xie1.
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]remember Taiwan’s his first real exposure, of course they’re gonna tell him that crap. They tried it on me and if you’ve read this far they probably tried it on you, too. I arrived at upper intermediate I think they called it so bo po mofe was an option I casually refused.
[/quote]
Yeah, any poor Westerner who arrives here not knowing better could be easily misled by the ignorant among the locals who make absurd claims like “bopomofo is more accurate than pinyin”. There are probably some ignorami on the other side of the straits making the opposite claim too. Yeah, and if you don’t want to burn in hell, only MY religion will save you… :loco:
bob, you and derek have me confused now with your explanations of pitch vs. tone. Maybe it’s just getting late? 
[quote=“Lord Lucan”][quote=“derek1978”]Pin Yin is for wusies :raspberry:
If you want to go around confusing your brain by using a romanized alphabet system to read madarin…by all means knock yourself out. But, I warn you that you are going to one huge headache at the end of the day.
If you want to read actual chinese characters the way they should be read, then use the MPS system. Learning BPMF may look intimidating at first, but it will stop you from brain reverting back to English pronounciation. Take some time to learn BPMF (most can do it in a week or two) and you will be speaking more correctly.[/quote]
Absolute nonsense. Utter and complete poppycock. Where do people get these ideas? Honestly? And why do well-educated, otherwise sensible Westerners buy this claptrap? [/quote]
Personal experience.
I don’t fully agree with derek’s take on the situation (I think it’s entirely possible to learn good pronunciation using pinyin), but I definitely had an easier time with pronunciation after I learned BPMF. At the time the only romanization scheme I had used was a bastardized Wade-Giles system, so maybe I would have had an easier time if I had started with pinyin.
Beginners should just be memorizing the system, not questioning it. Just make it a tool. Learn the rules first. Ask questions later.
Then when you get “advanced”, join the mostly pointless debate about pinyin v bpmf.
An aside. I feel a tad guilty I never picked up bo po mofe in Taiwan. Still, even that wouldn’t have helped much in this instance.
I met a Chinese chap on Sydney Railway station a month after June 4th 1989, who thrust a piece of paper into my hand and said in mangled English, “where is this?” Since I could equally mangle Chinese at the time I asked him where he wanted to go. He answered in Chinese that the address was on the paper. When I looked, it was written in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). At first I thought it was Russian and said, “no, I mean in English?” He insisted that it was English and that I should “know it” and if I “pretended I didn’t” then I was “fucking with him because he was Chinese”. At which point he walked off swearing at me. 
In hindsight he probably, along with every other Chinese in Sydney at that time, wanted to get his photo taken out the front of the PRC embassy waving a banner and wearing a headband. They were queing up to do it. Seriously! I’d just come from there.
What a pity he didnt ask in Chinese. It was early days and I was feeling fantastically chuffed cos I’d just been able to read the characters saying PRC embassy.
HG