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

[trien27]

用 = yong in Pinyin, ㄩㄥ in Zhuyin fuhao which should be "ü+eng", which might be "iong" in Tongyong Pinyin, not Zhuyin Fuhao / bopomofo! ü is sometimes transcribed as "yu". Depending on the romanization, it could be yung [Wade-Giles], yong [Hanyü Pinyin], etc... but somehow it's rarely transcribed as "ü+eng" or üeng.

ㄈㄝㄥ

HUH? ㄈㄝㄥ = ㄈ[F]+ㄝ[eh]+ㄥ[eng] which isn't "Feng" in Pinyin. It should be

ㄈㄥ or ㄈ+ㄥ which curiously isn't "Feng" but rather "Fung" in Wade-Giles, etc... which would be "Fong" in Tongyong Pinyin.

Edited March 26, 2010 at 02:41 AM by trien27

[semantic nuance]

I can only say it has something to do with sanhdi.

When ㄛ(o) is combined withㄅ ㄆ(p) ㄇ(m) ㄈ(f), theoretically, they should be pronounced as bo, po, mo, fo, but in reality they are read as ㄅㄨㄛ(buo) ㄆㄨㄛ(puo) ㄇㄨㄛ(muo) ㄈㄨㄛ(fuo) as in 剝, 潑, 摸, 佛.

When ㄥ(eng) is combined with ㄅ, ㄆ, ㄇ, ㄈ, ㄨ(wu) or ㄩ(yu), ㄥ is pronounced much like ‘ong’ such as ㄅㄨㄥ(bong) ㄆㄨㄥ(pong) ㄇㄨㄥ(mong) ㄈㄨㄥ(fong) as in 蹦, 碰, 夢 豐. But I’ve also heard a lot of the elderly or the middle-aged retreated from Mainland China in 1949 pronounce these as beng, peng, meng, feng, and weng. When ㄥ is combined with other 聲母( consonants) or 韻母(vowels) except ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄨ and ㄩ, it should be read as eng. For example, 等 , 成, 繩, etc.

Here’s a passage about rules of sanhdi (Quoted from 教注音符號的幾個訣竅 )

把握五個變音的情形

結合韻符號的念法是從音到韻符，只要不把兩音切斷，就可以念得很好，但是一旦教到ㄧㄢ、ㄩㄢ、ㄧㄣ、ㄩㄣ、ㄧㄥ時，都會發現一個現象﹕直接拼讀起來，聲音就是不對。原因是﹕韻符有五個變音，這五個注音在念它時，會產生變音的現象。

ㄧㄢ音，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄧㄚㄋ，但是讀時會變成ㄧㄝㄋ ，母音改變了。

ㄩㄢ音也是一樣，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄩㄚㄋ，但是讀時會變成ㄩㄝㄋ ，ㄚㄋ變成ㄝㄋ，母音改變了。

ㄧㄣ音，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄧㄜㄋ，收聲母ㄋ，可是在拼讀時產生變音現象，中間有母音ㄜ消失掉了，ㄧㄣ讀出來的聲音是ㄧㄋ 。

ㄩㄣ也是一樣，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄩㄜㄋ，可是由於變音，中間的母音ㄜ消失掉了，我們要讀成ㄩㄋ 。

ㄧㄥ音，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄧㄜπ，中間有母音ㄜ，後收聲母，可是拼讀時由於變音，中間的韻符ㄜ消失了，我們會讀成ㄧπ

And here's a brief quote from an interview talking about aspects of teaching mother languages in Taiwan.

基本上，我覺得是當初在制定國語注音符號的時候思考不周密，在〈錢玄同關於Gwoyen Romatzyh字母之選用〉一文就曾說過：「……其實國語中壓根兒就沒有o這韻母，「窩、鍋、闊、火、波、坡、摩、佛、多、駝、挪、羅、左、錯、所、卓、戳、說、若」都是uo，但因「波、坡、摩、佛」四音的聲ㄅ、ㄆ、ㄇ、ㄈ是兩唇音，大可把下面的圓唇元音ㄨ略去，所以這四音不拼作buo、puo、muo、fuo，而省作bo、po、mo、fo；至於其他各音，則須用uo拼。」(轉引自王力《漢語音韻學》頁473)。在理論上中間的u，可加可不加，但是從教學的角度來說，還是加上u比較適當。因為這些唇音字一向屬於合口呼，取消u，會導致音值的誤解而造成教學上的困擾。有一些方言因為在語音體系內沒有uo這樣的韻母，所以當這些地區的人學習官話的時候，往往會用o來取代uo。像以閩南話為母語的人，常會把「伯伯」唸成 po2 po0，而且更麻煩的是很多小學生在使用注音輸入法打字的時候，例如「撥」他會打成 ㄅㄨㄛ，結果電腦會出現查無此字。目前看來國語的注音是無法改變的，所以這個矛盾會一直持續下去。

If you want to listen to all these pronunciations I listed, please go to http://dict.concised.../cover/main.htm ,type the word and click the Quicktime.

Edited August 23, 2010 at 05:58 AM by semantic nuance

[Altair]

Thanks, Semantic Nuance; this is very interesting and lays out the vowel changes very clearly.

I must say, as a listen to the recordings of "feng" and "beng," I hear only a very slight difference from what I am used to. In fact, if no one called attention to it, I would not notice any change at all and certainly would not think of "fong" or "bong."

ㄩㄣ也是一樣，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄩㄜㄋ，可是由於變音，中間的母音ㄜ消失掉了，我們要讀成ㄩㄋ 。

I must say that I really do not hear a pure vowel, i.e., 听不到中间的母音消掉的现象。 For example, listen to 群. I don't hear an ㄜ before the ㄋ, but I do hear something like an ㄧ. The vowel definitely moves from ㄩ to something else.

[semantic nuance]

I do hear something like an ㄧ

Do you mean the consonant ㄑ(q)? When I was a kid learning bopomofo, if there're 3 phonemes, for exmaple 群(ㄑㄩㄣ2), as a case in point, we tended to combine the latter two together, ㄩㄣ2, then the first ㄑ joined in.

ㄧㄣ音，依音素分析，它應讀成ㄧㄜㄋ，收聲母ㄋ，可是在拼讀時產生變音現象，中間有母音ㄜ消失掉了，ㄧㄣ讀出來的聲音是ㄧㄋ 。ㄩㄣ也是一樣，......我們要讀成ㄩㄋ 。ㄧㄥ音，......我們會讀成ㄧπ

To be honestly, I'd simply pronounce these ㄧㄣ, ㄩㄣ, as nasalised 一, ㄩ, and ㄧㄥ, back nasalised 一.

[Shi Tong]

Well, that kind of cleared that lot up.

Clearly my pinyin is awful. I did some looking very closely at a pinyin chart the other day, and realised that they have an extra between fong and fang, which they do not have with zhuyin and bpmf, which is feng. Semantic nuance has clearly stated that out, and that is that sometimes in Taiwanese Mandarin you wouldn't have the eng sound in words like fong, and they would simply be pronounced as fong instead of what you would hear a lot in China, which is feng.

I'd like to ask Semantic how they pronounce 用, would it be an ㄧㄥ or an ㄩㄥ, baring in mind that the difference is hardly noticable..

[semantic nuance]

I'd like to ask Semantic how they pronounce 用, would it be an ㄧㄥ or an ㄩㄥ, baring in mind that the difference is hardly noticable..

There happens to have a word containing ㄧㄥ and ㄩㄥ: 應用. Click its audio clip, then you'll notice a great difference between ㄧㄥ and ㄩㄥ.

Hope it helps!

[skylee]

semantic nuance, thanks for #226. A very useful reply.

[Shi Tong]

Semantic, I agree, ㄧㄥ and ㄩㄥsound very different to me, so thanks for that!

[chrix]

Wow, looks like I've missed a very interesting discussion

So now that's cleared up I'm interested in SN's usage of the term "sandhi". Usually, sandhi can only occur at a morpheme boundary, and I don't see one involved here? So in what way does it involve sandhi?

[semantic nuance]

Perhaps it's my awkward English. I used 'sandhi', to mean 音變.

[Shi Tong]

Interestingly, reading through my pinyin table, yong comes under i-ong, as renzhe suggested, whereas in Taiwan, it's definately under ㄩㄥ and pronounced as such.

I wonder if the zhuyin/ pinyin has actually affected the pronunciation in the two differing regions, or, if the difference is little enough that it doesn't "matter" to the natives speaking those sounds?

[skylee]

I wonder if the zhuyin/ pinyin has actually affected the pronunciation in the two differing regions

A valid point. I wonder about it too, especially about "X". But I am not a native Mandarin speaker so I always have doubts.

[Shi Tong]

"X" as in "j/q/x" 的 X?

I've not heard a different pronunciation of that sound..

I'm confused.. Again!!

[atitarev]

I wonder if the zhuyin/ pinyin has actually affected the pronunciation in the two differing regions

Spelling affects the way we speak because we often acquire words from reading, not from listening and the way we perceive the letters, e.g. It's not hard to say "shance" to an English speaker but it's "chance", the way the French word is pronounced in English. I wonder if Chinese words with the -ong final gradually move from -ung to -ong in pronunciation.

Do you guys thing that zhuyin could serve as a replacement for English abbreviations like CD, DVD, WTO, since they may be banned from official writing?

[Lu]

Zhuyin is sometimes used in Taiwan to write words that don't have an (agreed upon) character, mostly Taiwanese words. You see it in newspapers or subtitles.

It's highly unlikely that it's going to be used to replace English abbreviations: those abbreviations are banned in China, not in Taiwan, whereas zhuyin is only used in Taiwan, and not in China. It's more likely that Chinese abbreviations will be used now.

[Shi Tong]

Spelling affects the way we speak because we often acquire words from reading, not from listening and the way we perceive the letters,

While I agree that this is a very possible notion in English/ Roman based languages, I'd be a little more surprised if spelling had the same effect in Chinese languages.

The reason I say this is because I think the learning of a character comes with simply asking someone how to pronounce this word and hearing that pronunciation from the horse's mouth.

That said, I know a lot of Taiwanese kids books include zhuyin next to the Chinese character and this may well have an effect if the reader is looking at this spelling to find out how to pronounce said word.

Zhuyin is sometimes used in Taiwan to write words that don't have an (agreed upon) character, mostly Taiwanese words. You see it in newspapers or subtitles.

That's very true.

You also get a few English words like Q for curly or chewy, which is also a Taiwanese word. The reason for the use of Q is because there isn't a Q sound in Mandarin.:lol:

[Hofmann]

Thread TL;DR. Just going to say something possibly related.

Chinese syllables have been thought of as initials and finals since at least Middle Chinese. Even though Zhuyin Fuhao might appear to break the finals into smaller parts, it is ultimately a system of notating initials and finals, just like Hanyu Pinyin. That they use ㄩ in the final that rhymes with 用 implies that at the time when Zhuyin Fuhao was created, many pronounced it like /yʊŋ/.

[renzhe]

How is 用 pronounced in Nanjing? Could it be a difference between Beijing and Nanjing Mandarin?

Nanjing was the capital for a short time in 1912, when Zhuyin Fuhao was created. It was also the capital when the KMT forces relocated to Taiwan, so it's possible that Taiwan's branch of Mandarin is closer to the Nanjing pronunciation of that time.

Edited April 10, 2010 at 11:37 AM by renzhe

[trien27]

Do you guys think that 注音符號 could serve as a replacement for English abbreviations like CD, DVD, WTO, since they may be banned from official writing?

注音符號 would not be used in Mainland China, due to politics, if you know what I mean. So, it is in China, that you might not be able to use abbreviated forms such as NBA, WTO, GDP, etc... I believe CD & DVD won't be changed. How in the world would they translate F-1 (Formula-1 race car driving) [公式~一?], if it's only in Chinese characters. There's no "F" character in Chinese?!

If they can't use those abbreviated terms, does that also mean that 汉语拼音 would also be banned?

You could still use it in Taiwan, ROC, etc... so you might not need to use it.

Zhuyin is sometimes used in Taiwan to write words that don't have an (agreed upon) character, mostly Taiwanese words. You see it in newspapers or subtitles.

Even Chinese characters which people forget how to write, they'd instantly use 注音符號 too.

[skylee]

How in the world would they translate F-1 (Formula-1 race car driving) [公式~一?], if it's only in Chinese characters. There's no "F" character in Chinese?!

The term is 一級方程式.