How useful is zhuyin / 'bopomofo'? How to use it?

[Hofmann]

Nope, I don't think anyone says /jəŋ/ or /yəŋ/. I'm certain I've heard /yʊŋ/ before through. /ɕyʊŋ/ also. If I remember correctly, it was a Taiwanese friend of my mother's. Of course, I completely understand and agree if you find my anecdote worthless.

[Shi Tong]

Does anyone mind if I ask, can you post a sample of yourself saying yong4 (用), along with a demonstration of (spoken) spelling??

[jbradfor]

This is obviously not me saying it, but this is close to how I (try to!) say it.

What is "spoken spelling"?

[renzhe]

I think that he wants you to split -iong into "i" and "ong" and then put them together, because that's how Zhuyin does it.

IMHO, it doesn't make much sense, as pinyin treats finals as a whole (no medials), and if you did this, you wouldn't be pronouncing it as one sound, the way you're meant to when reading out pinyin.

[jbradfor]

Ah, I think I understand now.

But that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. "yong" in pinyin, as you said, is considered a single sound, not an "initial y plus a final ong". You can clearly see that in the table I linked to, where "yong" is listed in the cell for "no initial plus final iong".

Maybe if "yong" were spelled as "iong" in pinyin then ShiTong would be happy. But it's not, so deal with it. [And, personally, I'm glad it's not.]

I should be pointed out that in pinyin syllables that begin with 'y' or 'w' are in some sense "fake initials", as they actually correspond to finals only with the i->y and u->w.

[renzhe]

Zhuyin does this -- separate some finals into a medial + final, for example -uan = -u- + an.

Pinyin doesn't do this, and trying to do this with finals will lead to confusion.

[Altair]

I think that he wants you to split -iong into "i" and "ong" and then put them together, because that's how Zhuyin does it.

IMHO, it doesn't make much sense, as pinyin treats finals as a whole (no medials), and if you did this, you wouldn't be pronouncing it as one sound, the way you're meant to when reading out pinyin.

I agree that pinyin does not do this, but I see no reason why it cannot be done.

I think those of us who try to match our pronunciation to the attached sound file, use "y" (ㄧ) plus "ong" (ㄨㄥ) just as suggested by pinyin; however, the zhuyin is misleading. The ㄨㄥ in 翁 is clearly different from the ㄨㄥ in 中, even though they are the same phonemically. It is the latter pronunciation that we use for 用.

By the way, those who doubt the possibility that in this case pinyin "y" represents and underlying "ü" should listing to the "iong" final after some of the initials. To my ear, many of them clearly have a medial semivowel that corresponds to "ü."

yong.WAV

[Shi Tong]

Hello Altair,

My point exactly- i- ong- or "yong" suggests ㄧwhere yong is pronounced üong (if you want to be pedantic).

But that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.

It doesn't for you, but it does for everyone that uses zhuyin to spell, and that would be a large portion of Taiwan, so a good few million.

A couple of interesting points which I wanted to bring to your attention:

1) I remember listening to/ watching "fong huang" or phoenix TV channel and asking my wife "hey, why do they say "feng" with an "ㄝ" sound in the middle", to which you replied that Chinese people do sometimes use an ㄝ at the end of this kind of sound. In other words, Fong in zhuyin for a lot of mainlanders would be spelled kind of like ㄈㄝㄥ, whereas the Taiwanese always use a pure ㄥ with an ㄛ sound in the middle.

That's maybe why we're coming up against confusion on the whole yong spelling/ pronunciation issue.

2) I am cross lateral, which means that lots of parts of my brain use left sidedness instead of right, which is my predominant writing hand. I originally had trouble with reading English, which did take me a long time to get up to a good speed when I was a kid. I wonder if this is why I like Chinese characters and "shorter", "less confusing" representations of sounds and characters. I think long words make no sense to me, though obviously I've overcome this obsticle with my English.

I might start a thread and see if anyone is interested in debating the possibility that dyslexic/ cross lateral people have more trouble with longer words and if they might possibily like the fact that Chinese characters are so unambiguous in that they look like a drawing and not so much a long list of "confusing" letters.

To see weather or not you're cross lateral, maybe you should check this site out- I'm about 40% left sided, which has given me some challenges. Ones which I generally just worked through, rather than made a fuss about, and I ended up with pretty good English results at school, so it's not like it's a massive problem for me:

http://mindbluff.com/phplater.htm

Might pass the time somewhat!

[renzhe]

I agree that pinyin does not do this, but I see no reason why it cannot be done.

It can be done for Mandarin in general (zhuyin does it), but you cannot start separating pinyin finals into medials and finals and expect it to make sense, because pinyin was not designed to do that.

My point exactly- i- ong- or "yong" suggests ㄧwhere yong is pronounced üong (if you want to be pedantic).

If you read the thread, you will see that the vast majority disagrees with this, or at least thinks that this pronunciation is rare.

The majority would pronounce it exactly like pinyin suggests. With the caveat that "i" in "-iong" (and therefore "yong") is short and spoken like a consonant, not like a long vowel.

I remember listening to/ watching "fong huang" or phoenix TV channel and asking my wife "hey, why do they say "feng" with an "ㄝ" sound in the middle", to which you replied that Chinese people do sometimes use an ㄝ at the end of this kind of sound. In other words, Fong in zhuyin for a lot of mainlanders would be spelled kind of like ㄈㄝㄥ, whereas the Taiwanese always use a pure ㄥ with an ㄛ sound in the middle.

The fong/wong pronunciation is a Taiwanese peculiarity (reflected in tongyong pinyin). Among mainland speakers, I've only ever heard feng and weng (which is reflected in Hanyu pinyin).

2) I'm close to ambidextrous, and all the left/right-handedness tests fail miserably with me or give me totally opposite results. I have no problem with long words.

[jbradfor]

My point exactly- i- ong- or "yong" suggests ㄧwhere yong is pronounced üong (if you want to be pedantic).

Stop focusing on the pronunciation that pinyin "suggests" to you, and learn it for real. Everyone will be a lot happier.

[Shi Tong]

If you read the thread, you will see that the vast majority disagrees with this, or at least thinks that this pronunciation is rare.

The majority would pronounce it exactly like pinyin suggests. With the caveat that "i" in "-iong" (and therefore "yong") is short and spoken like a consonant, not like a long vowel.

If "üong" is wrong, why does it exist in Taiwanese dictionaries? Are you suggesting that ALL Taiwanese people pronounce "üong" wrong?!

Put it this way renzhe- when I was learning the "üong" sound, I automatically assumed that it was yong (like i-ong), but I was CORRECTED by a NATIVE SPEAKER.. not just ONE, but SEVERAL of them told me that yong (i-ong) is incorrect, and that the pronunciation was "üong"

Maybe this is a Taiwanese peculiarity, but the rule in Taiwan is that the word is pronounced "üong", weather this makes sense in pinyin or not.

Also, there is no rule which says that ü has to be a long vowel, if you say it short at the start of üong, you'll find it IS short. Also, I dont think I've ever thought that the y or ü at the start of yong is a consonant, it's an "ㄧ" or an "ㄩ" sound. Both of these are vowel sounds.

It can be done for Mandarin in general (zhuyin does it), but you cannot start separating pinyin finals into medials and finals and expect it to make sense, because pinyin was not designed to do that.

Well, pinyin isn't actually "Chinese language" it's a Romanisation system, the Romanisation is more likely to be wrong than the pronunciation of locals, and noone will be looking at pinyin for their pronunciation, but copying their parents.

IMO, you shouldn't be looking to the Romanisation for a pronunciation, but asking a Chinese or Taiwanese person how the word starts. If the Chinese person says that it's anㄧ, then there is a Taiwanese/ Chinese difference, clearly one of them being that the Chinese wouldn't pronounce the word as two seperate sounds, as in zhuyin, so you may never know exactly how it's pronounced because the pronunciation is very similar.

The fong/wong pronunciation is a Taiwanese peculiarity (reflected in tongyong pinyin). Among mainland speakers, I've only ever heard feng and weng (which is reflected in Hanyu pinyin).

Well, that clears up that question.

2) I'm close to ambidextrous, and all the left/right-handedness tests fail miserably with me or give me totally opposite results. I have no problem with long words.

No, but if you look up "cross lateral", you'll find something else called "cross lateral dyslexia", which is like "the next step". It doesn't mean to say that if you're ambidextrous, that you will automatically be dyslexic, the point is that there may be a correlation between cross laterlality, dyslexia and problems with longer words (like pinyin uses).

Stop focusing on the pronunciation that pinyin "suggests" to you, and learn it for real. Everyone will be a lot happier.

Are you reading the thread?

I'm not using pinyin, I'm using zhuyin, and as I've said before:

When I was learning the "üong" sound, I automatically assumed that it was yong (like i-ong), but I was CORRECTED by a NATIVE SPEAKER.. not just ONE, but SEVERAL of them told me that yong (i-ong) is incorrect, and that the pronunciation was "üong".

Please stop tarring me with some kind of incompetance brush. You've never spoken to me in real life, let alone in Chinese, so dont make assumptions that I need to "learn it for real" as if I never have done.

[renzhe]

If "üong" is wrong, why does it exist in Taiwanese dictionaries?

Which Taiwanese dictionary writes "üong"?

What you are trying to say is that they write ㄩㄥ, and you pronounce ㄩㄥ as "üong"

And everybody else who lived and studied in Taiwan (like chrix, Lu and Daan) pronounce ㄩㄥ as -iong, because they were taught to pronounce it that way in Taiwan.

IMO, you shouldn't be looking to the Romanisation for a pronunciation, but asking a Chinese or Taiwanese person how the word starts.

Do you honestly think that I've never done this, or that none of my teachers actually told me this?

When I was learning the "üong" sound

But the sound you posted was not "üong", it was clearly ü+eng.

Please stop tarring me with some kind of incompetance brush. You've never spoken to me in real life, let alone in Chinese, so dont make assumptions that I need to "learn it for real" as if I never have done.

You are still welcome to post a sample of your pronunciation in the relevant thread, as many of us have done. That's the easiest way to get a feeling for someone's pronunciation.

[xiaotao]

I just want to share that knowing both pinyin and zhuyin has been helpful to my kids. They are in grade school and have no confusion. They started learning Zhuyin when they were 3. They are too young to dispute and accept it as it is. They are not teaching zhuyin at my kids' school anymore but my kids can still enjoy reading traditional characters books with zhuyin to help them out. It's nice to be able to drive a stick shift as well as an automatic car even though almost everthing is automatic now.

[roddy]

. . . some challenges. Ones which I generally just worked through, rather than made a fuss about

A principle it's always worth applying

[Shi Tong]

I just want to share that knowing both pinyin and zhuyin has been helpful to my kids. They are in grade school and have no confusion. They started learning Zhuyin when they were 3. They are too young to dispute and accept it as it is. They are not teaching zhuyin at my kids' school anymore but my kids can still enjoy reading traditional characters books with zhuyin to help them out. It's nice to be able to drive a stick shift as well as an automatic car even though almost everthing is automatic now.

Cool.. I have my 5 year old reading some zhuyin sounds now.. he likes it too:D

Which Taiwanese dictionary writes "üong"?

What you are trying to say is that they write ㄩㄥ, and you pronounce ㄩㄥ as "üong"

And everybody else who lived and studied in Taiwan (like chrix, Lu and Daan) pronounce ㄩㄥ as -iong, because they were taught to pronounce it that way in Taiwan.

Yeah, but what part of the Taiwanese dictionary says that ㄩㄥ should be pronounced as -iong? It doesn't, it says it should be pronounced as ㄩㄥ.

As I said before, ㄩㄥ and -iong have very subtle differences. Even most native speakers would not pick up on, or not care about the difference if heard in rapid speach by a foreigner.

It doesn't make it righter though.

I'd like to get Chrix, Dann and Lu together with a few Taiwanese native speakers of Mandarin and ASK those Taiwanese how to pronounce ㄩㄥand prove to them that it's pronounced that way, because this is what happened to me, and it was ONLY because I asked.

Otherwise I would have been saying -iong forever.. which,, granted is NO BIG DEAL!!

Do you honestly think that I've never done this, or that none of my teachers actually told me this?

Do you honestly think that I'VE never done this either?? Do you think I've never asked teachers, Taiwanese people etc about this? Seriously? Because I've asked lots of Taiwanese people, including some Taiwanese teachers, and they all tell me ㄩㄥ is correct.

I understand why you think that I dont know better, and that's because we both think we have plenty of "proof".

But the sound you posted was not "üong", it was clearly ü+eng.

The sound I pronounced was the way that Taiwanese people say 用, which is ㄩㄥ. Pinyin works differently because it has an "eng" sound where the Taiwanese sound is more ㄥ, as I pronounced. Taiwanese do have eng at the end of 成, but not at the end of 用.

You are still welcome to post a sample of your pronunciation in the relevant thread, as many of us have done. That's the easiest way to get a feeling for someone's pronunciation.

Well, I'm sure you'd all want to insult me.

Repost relevant thread on here and I'll see if there are any samples of text I actually understand fully (because my reading is poor), and I'll give it a try. Bare in mind that my eqipment killed my yong wav pretty badly.

A principle it's always worth applying

I assume this means you think I'm making a fuss.

I agree that yong -i-ong and ㄩㄥ sound "the same enough", though, I must say that Taiwanese speakers would pronounce the ㄥdifferently, since renzhe says that in China they say the ㄥlike the end of 成 for yong.

[renzhe]

Yeah, but what part of the Taiwanese dictionary says that ㄩㄥ should be pronounced as -iong? It doesn't, it says it should be pronounced as ㄩㄥ.

IMO, you shouldn't be looking to Zhuyin for a pronunciation, but asking a Chinese or Taiwanese person how the word starts.

Well, I'm sure you'd all want to insult me.

Why? Nobody has insulted anyone over there, and it would be nice if more people posted.

What you can do is transcribe the text into Zhuyin and than read that. Or read one of the super-easy texts which appeared lated in the thread.

See here: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19910-post-a-sample-of-your-pronunciation-here

since renzhe says that in China they say the ㄥlike the end of 成 for yong.

I do? When? Where???

[skylee]

I'd like to get Chrix, Dann and Lu together with a few Taiwanese native speakers of Mandarin and ASK those Taiwanese how to pronounce ㄩㄥand prove to them that it's pronounced that way, because this is what happened to me, and it was ONLY because I asked.

There is at least one member here who is a native speaker from Taiwan. I have written to her to see if she is interested in this discussion.

[Shi Tong]

IMO, you shouldn't be looking to Zhuyin for a pronunciation, but asking a Chinese or Taiwanese person how the word starts.

Which I have.. :lol::lol: Lets not keep on with this!! :lol:

Why? Nobody has insulted anyone over there, and it would be nice if more people posted.

Because I always feel backed into a corner.

What you can do is transcribe the text into Zhuyin and than read that. Or read one of the super-easy texts which appeared lated in the thread.

See here: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19910-post-a-sample-of-your-pronunciation-here

Thanks! I'll try my best to find the time to find a script I can read properly.

I do? When? Where???

grr..

erm..

But the sound you posted was not "üong", it was clearly ü+eng.

How DO you pronounce your eng then? as an ong or an eng, and would I be right in thinking that the eng is like the eng in 成?

PLEASE?! :lol:

Skylee, thanks for asking that member, maybe they can help with some tips!!

[renzhe]

Maybe I misunderstood your sentence (and you mine), but there is no similarity whatsoever between the finals of 成 and 用, IMHO. They don't rhyme. I certainly don't claim that "people in China" pronounce 用 with the same final as 成, though zhuyin might mislead you into believing this.

[Shi Tong]

hehe.. no, no, not at all, I never thought that 成 and 用 have the same final at all.

Too many people at work today- plus I have a bad throat from a cold, though I tried to record last thing last night, but failed because of my mic. I'll try to do the recording tomorrow.

Edited March 25, 2010 at 12:53 PM by Shi Tong