Guest Yau Posted July 16, 2004 at 05:13 PM Report Posted July 16, 2004 at 05:13 PM how does a Cantonese pronunciation system differentiate 对, 帝 and 带? or 陈, 春 and 残? Wow! a good question that only a well-pronounced cantonese is able to ask. The system developed by linguists in southern china suggests the pinyin like this: deoi3 對 dai3 帝 daai3 帶 can4 陳 caan4 殘 ceon1 春 Quote
Claw Posted July 16, 2004 at 05:30 PM Report Posted July 16, 2004 at 05:30 PM With accompanying audio: deoi3 對 http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/deoi3.wav dai3 帝 http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/dai3.wav daai3 帶 http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/daai3.wav can4 陳 http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/can4.wav caan4 殘 http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/caan4.wav ceon1 春 http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Canton/sound/ceon1.wav[/url] Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 01:40 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 01:40 AM The problem is, if I want to say 大家好, I would use "Dai Ga Ho" very intuitively, and that becomes 弟家好。 If I want to say 弟弟好, and I use "Dai Dai Ho", the sound would become 大大好 in my head. Therefore, it is not a good system, imo. Also, what's the system that uses "ch" a lot, e.g. 晴，钟，蔡，张，朱，陈 etc etc all become ching, chong, choy, cheung, chu, chan etc etc. and in the u.s., other people "learn" chinese from seeing Chinese names, and so Chinese becomes "Ching Chong Chu........" Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 06:29 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 06:29 AM Quest: I don't see what you're trying to say... 大家好 is Daai Gaa Hou, not Dai Ga Ho. Cantonese makes a distinction between a short a sound and a longer a sound (represented by aa). The aa in Cantonese is equivalent to the Mandarin pinyin a. You can hear the distinction by clicking these links: 大 daai3 弟 dai3 Also, what's the system that uses "ch" a lot, e.g. 晴，钟，蔡，张，朱，陈 etc etc all become ching, chong, choy, cheung, chu, chan etc etc. That's the Yale system, which I actually find more intuitive than the LSHK Jyutping (粵拼) system that Hong Kong officially adopted. Actually not all the words that you listed use the ch sound. 钟, 张, and 朱 actually start with the j sound (z in LSHK). 晴 LSHK - cing4; Yale - ching4 钟 LSHK - zung1; Yale - jung1 蔡 LSHK - coi3; Yale - choi3 张 LSHK - zoeng1/zoeng3; Yale - jeung1/jeung3 朱 LSHK - zyu1; Yale - jyu1 陈 LSHK - can4/zan6; Yale - chan4/jan6 This link compares several popular romanization systems. Quote
Guest Yau Posted July 17, 2004 at 06:53 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 06:53 AM I think Quest and Claw also made a point. In fact, when we say 大家好 in pinyin, the most intuitve pinyin is "Da Ga Hou!". This inaccruate pinyin system were developed probably a hundred years ago, and still highly popular in hongkong and chinatown. A serious cantonese learner may not understand what it said, but all educated native cantonese should be able to decode them without any problem. Another example is Hang Seng (恆生), Kong (港, 剛), Lo (羅, 老), Ding (頂, 定), Ki (記). All these aren't inaccruate pinyin actually but widely adopted. In fact, Intuitivity is the main criticisim to the exisiting acadamic -level cantonese pinyin system. Some hongkongaises abondoned this system when making a cantonese pinyin system as he worried about this problem too http://home.hkstar.com/~waikitsi/pingyum.html Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 07:04 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 07:04 AM Ah... Thanks for clarifying Yau. I now see what Quest was trying to say. Native Cantonese speakers basically make up their own romanization system and end up with things like "Dai Ga Ho" which is not particularly accurate nor consistent. This would be akin to Mandarin speakers making up their own pinyin (i.e. "Da ja how" for 大家好). The reason why this doesn't happen in Mandarin is because pinyin has been officially used and taught for a long time in the PRC (however you may notice that it happens in Taiwan and in Chinatowns of overseas communities). In Hong Kong, since there hasn't been a standard romanization system for many years (and even now that there is, it's not really taught... it's just used for foreign transliteration), people typically make up their own system which end up confusing people like Quest. Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:09 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:09 AM Actually not all the words that you listed use the ch sound. 钟, 张, and 朱 actually start with the j sound (z in LSHK). 晴 LSHK - cing4; Yale - ching4 钟 LSHK - zung1; Yale - jung1 蔡 LSHK - coi3; Yale - choi3 张 LSHK - zoeng1/zoeng3; Yale - jeung1/jeung3 朱 LSHK - zyu1; Yale - jyu1 陈 LSHK - can4/zan6; Yale - chan4/jan6 Ive only seen "Chong/Chung, Cheung, Chu", never "jung/jeung/jyu" in people's names.... Also, there's got to be a better way to differentiate the long and short a... than "dai" and "daai". What I am trying to say is, none of the existing systems works well. Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:16 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:16 AM Ive only seen "Chong/Chung, Cheung, Chu", never "jung/jeung/jyu" in people's names. Again, that's probably due to different romanization systems that were made up since the j sound isn't completely like the English j sound, but rather more like an unaspirated version of the ch sound. I have an old dictionary from the 1920s that uses its own made up romanization system. It uses ch for the j sound and ch' for the ch sound. So jung would be chung and chung would be ch'ung. You may also sometimes see this romanized as ts and ts' - tsung and ts'ung. Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:22 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:22 AM I support the "ts" and "dz" spellings, or maybe "Ts" and "Z". "J" is bad... I hate it when I hear people say 钟 with an English "J" sound.. so for 晴，钟，蔡，张，朱，陈 maybe Tsing, Zong, Tsoy, Zeung, Zu, Tsun For 弟 and 大 ->> maybe Duy and Dai Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:22 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:22 AM What I am trying to say is, none of the existing systems works well. Well I think the existing standardized systems do work pretty well. The examples you're pointing to, like the ch example, are examples of other non-standard systems that people have made up. Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:24 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:24 AM I support the "ts" and "dz" spellings, or maybe "Ts" and "Z". "J" is bad... I hate it when I hear people say 钟 with an English "J" sound.. I don't see how this is different from the Mandarin Pinyin system. I see people all the time pronounce something like "cao" as "kow" or "qiu" as "kew" because they don't know that the pinyin c and q sounds are different from the English c and q sounds. Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:40 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:40 AM I don't see how this is different from the Mandarin Pinyin system. I see people all the time pronounce something like "cao" as "kow" or "qiu" as "kew" because they don't know that the pinyin c and q sounds are different from the English c and q sounds. no the problem is, some native or half native (foreign born) cantonese really think it's just an English "j" sound. of course claw, everything can be learned or taught, but I would prefer a system that conforms to the norm, and be easy to use and elegant to look at. The system you mentioned works for all situations, sure. It's like different input methods, all work, but we are discussing to find the one that works better or best. Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:44 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:44 AM no the problem is, some native or half native (foreign born) cantonese really think it's just an English "j" sound. I don't get what you're trying to say. Are you saying that native speakers pronounce these words with an English j? If so, that's a fault of their own and not the romanization system since most native speakers don't even know any romanization system for their own language. Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:47 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:47 AM yes some do, and giving them a romanization with a "J" spelling will only reinforce that mistake. you never get what I m saying, because we are not on the same page -.- Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:53 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:53 AM yes some do, and giving them a romanization with a "J" spelling will only reinforce that mistake. That could be one reason why HK adopted the LSHK system, which uses z for the j sound. The LSHK system is partly based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is more accurate in some respects. The only thing I really don't like about it is its use of j for a y sound (i.e. jat1 instead of yat1 for 一) and oe for eu, which just simply looks weird to me (i.e. hoeng1 instead of heung1 for 香). EDIT: I noticed you just edited this line in while I was typing in my response: you never get what I m saying, because we are not on the same page -.- Why do you say that? I think I understand what you're saying pretty well. Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:58 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 08:58 AM Why do you say that? I think I understand what you're saying pretty well. I saw "I don't get what you're trying to say. " at least two and a half times. Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:02 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:02 AM Ah you edited another line in while I wasn't looking: The system you mentioned works for all situations, sure. It's like different input methods, all work, but we are discussing to find the one that works better or best. I agree, but I don't think there will be any one system that is the best since many Cantonese sounds don't match one-to-one with sounds of the alphabet (and for that matter, the alphabet sounds are different from language to language too so we shouldn't just look to English sounds). As long as the system is consistent, it should do its job well. Mandarin pinyin is a good example of this, even though many of its spellings don't match the English pronounciation of the same spelling. Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:02 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:02 AM actually, that LSHK system matches pretty well with Pinyin for "c" and "z". Yes, if it used "eu" and "y", and maybe not "aa" for long a, then it would be a good system to use. Quote
Claw Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:04 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:04 AM I saw "I don't get what you're trying to say. " at least two and a half times. The first time I said afterwards: "Thanks for clarifying Yau. I now see what Quest was trying to say." And the second time, I actually guessed correctly what you were trying to say: "Are you saying that native speakers pronounce these words with an English j?" Quote
Quest Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:09 AM Report Posted July 17, 2004 at 09:09 AM As long as the system is consistent, it should do its job well. but if it conflicts with people's "learned intuition", then it might not be a good system afterall. Quote
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