Why bother?

[Hofmann]

Sometimes I find myself a participant in a conversation that contains pronouncing Chinese names and such.

For example, it's amusing how people try to read "Qin Shi Huang," pronounce it like [kʰɪn ʃi hwæŋ], and then proceed to ask me if that was right. So I'd be sitting there like "Man, who cares?" and even if I said it's supposed to be [ʈʂʰin˧˥ ʂʐ˩ xuɑŋ˧˥] do they think they could emulate it right away? Just don't bother. You either know how to pronounce it or your don't.

[renzhe]

Well, if so many people can't pronounce such common names as Einstein, Euler, Leibnitz, or Fyodor, Osama, and even English names like Norwich, Worcester and Edinburgh, they I tend to agree, what's the point of getting upset if somebody can't pronounce Chinese names properly?

[Lu]

If they ask I'll correct them until they get it sort of right (it's not that difficult, really); if the name is likely to come up again too; or if they are a friend and I know they won't mind me correcting them.

But there's just too much of it. One particular newspaper here has for years continued to use the given name of Chinese people as their surname, so they go 'scientist Chen Zhiwei made an important discovery... Zhiwei says...' I never got around to writing them a letter to explain their mistake, but recently I heard a teacher of mine has. Time and again he wrote to this newspaper, and still they get it wrong.

Now I'm interpreting for a group from Fujian. In the museum where they performed, they were announced as a group from Foo-dyee-ahn. I was there, I was the interpreter, they could have just ASKED me how to pronounce Fujian. I guess I should be grateful they didn't try to say Quanzhou.

[ai_ya]

I think your IPA is slightly off, Qin Shi Huang should actually be

/tɕʰin ʂɿ xʷɑŋ/

/tʂ/ is the retroflex sound 'ch' as in 'chi' not 'qi'.

Also brackets [] are not used to show phonemic (the pronunciation you were describing] pronunciations (brackets are used for phonetic or allophonic transcriptions], rather // is used.

[imron]

On a similar note, does anyone else hate the new English announcements on the Beijing subway they brought in just before . Uggh I cringe every time I hear the announcer call the place names - Jian gwo men, Bayzhing Train Station etc. I definitely prefer the announcements they had previously.

[Hofmann]

Thanks, ai_ya. I definitely meant tɕʰ and xʷ. Just thought nobody would really notice:oops:.

What would be an allophonic transcription?

[ai_ya]

I think the best way to explain is by giving an example:

The word 'pea' contains the sound /p/, right?

English doesn't distinguish between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants, so for the most part simply writing /p/ is fine.

If, however, you wanted to do a phonetic transcription, you would write [pʰ] because word-initial /p/ is always aspirated.

Chinese on the other hand, does distinguish aspiration in it's phonology, so there is no need to use brackets [].

Similarly, an english /l/ is usually velarized (dark) at the end of words in most dialects, so /lɪtl̩/ would be [lɪtɫ̩]. It is called a phonetic or allophonic transcription, because, a light 'l' and a dark 'l' are not minimal pair in english - i.e they are two variations of one sound.

The type of transcription with brackets [] is generally more detailed and tries to capture these allophones and other phonetic features as detailed as possible; // are usually enough for most transcription (because all native English speakers naturally aspirate word-initial stops, and velarize the 'l', etc)

Allophones are basically variations of one sound, which don't form minimal pairs - an English /p/ can be aspirated or unaspirated depending on where it is in the word, same with the 'l' and a lot of other things.

Hope I haven't confused you even more, I'm not very good at explaining it, but you can read a lot online about it.

Thanks

David

[jbradfor]

FSo I'd be sitting there like "Man, who cares?"

Because for some people using the correct pronunciation for foreign names and places is important.

even if I said it's supposed to be [ʈʂʰin˧˥ ʂʐ˩ xuɑŋ˧˥] do they think they could emulate it right away? Just don't bother. You either know how to pronounce it or your don't.

That's not true. There's a difference between being totally off in the pronunciation and being just a bit off.

[zhxlier]

I think it's a good thing that they cared to learn about the correct pronouciations.