剥掉 pronunciation

[sthubbar]

Pleco's ABC dictionary has it as bo1 diao4

nciku.com has it as bao1 diao4

Any ideas on the most common or proper pronunciation?

[Hofmann]

文讀bo1, 白讀bao1. In Mandarin, literary pronunciations are generally more conservative.

[HashiriKata]

nciku.com has it as bao1 diao4

Nciku.com doesn't have this combination as a unit/word, so it can't have given you "bao1 diao4". What it did was to mechanically give you the pronunciations of the 2 elements in succession (ie. bao1 + diao4 in the so called "sentence mode"). As a unit, this 剥掉 should read bo1diao4.

[muyongshi]

In terms of what I hear and say, I would say also that it should be bo1 diao4 but my input only lets me go with the bao. Which I find very odd since bao would have the meaning of to shell where bo typically is used in combinations that are similar to 剥掉 in meaning unless I'm missing something.

[leeyah]

掉 diào used after certain verbs is a complement of result/consequence (just like 完 is used for completion of action)

According to my e-dict 剥 has two readings & two meanings:

剥 bāo means '去掉外面的皮或壳' shell, skin, peel >>剥花生 shell peanuts, 剥皮 peel (eg fruit)

剥 bō is the reading used only in compound words like 剥夺 seize, take by force & the phrase 生吞活剥 swallow something raw and whole (fig) accept a theory, experience uncritically

You should provide us with some context, but according to the logic of 掉 I dare say the reading of 剥掉 is bāo diào which is what you get when you type 剥掉 in hanyu.iciba pinyin & 转换 it to pinyin

[leeyah]

This is very interesting because talking of pronunciation only, if you said it as bō diào it would probably be understood as 拨掉 pull out/away as in:

玫瑰拨掉了刺 the rose has lost its thorns

拨掉智齿/眉毛 pull out wisdom tooth/eyebrow hair

or even figuratively: 拨掉寂寞 get rid of loneliness

[muyongshi]

This is very interesting because talking of pronunciation only, if you said it as bō diào it would probably be understood as 拨掉 pull out/away as in:

Umm NO! that would be 拔掉 not 拨掉

Ba 拔 means to pull out/away and 拨 would mean to dial, poke, stick with the finger or to set aside/allocate.

Gotta watch those characters that look alike. They are VERY different

[leeyah]

Umm YES sorry for the translation mistake, but the phrases are not mine, but 百度 100% genuine.

Anyway the question was about pronouncing bodiao vs baodiao, since 剥 in OP and 拨 are homonyms the translation is (almost) irrelevant.

OK, so 拔 bá is pull, but it's hard to find proper translation for 拨掉 bodiao... it depends on the context.

Shed, loose, shake off, drop off? More suggestions?

& talking of bodiao, I found an interesting example (with 把...& 给 used in passive) for involuntary loss of wisdom tooth

真没想到,我居然在今天,把智齿给拨了!

[muyongshi]

Well I am sorry but you are wrong on this. Specifically on the wisdom teeth and eyebrows one. The other two, the rose one, it sounds funny no matter which way you say it so I'm not sure about it. But the second phrase is not a phrase that is commonly used {read- the amount of search results is only 1 page}, and if you switch the characters in your search {and make sure you're using quotes} you will see that 拔掉 is correct not 拨掉, 拨掉 is a typo.

[leeyah]

Well I am sorry but you are wrong on this. Specifically on the wisdom teeth and eyebrows one.

You refuse to accept that there may be two sets of phrases or two ways to express that something either fell/was pulled off/removed from (by hand, as both characters imply) or of itself or whatever?

I am sorry, but I think 百度 knows better

& since you mentioned it as 'typo' - there can be no typo with characters pronounced differently, you either type bo or you type ba, and get 拨 or 拔 respectively

[muyongshi]

& since you mentioned it as 'typo' - there can be no typo with characters pronounced differently, you either type bo or you type ba, and get 拨 or 拔 respectively

What I mean by type is that whoever typed it was confused as to what CHARACTER it was, so in that sense the pronunciation then becomes transparent.

Like I said, try those again with quotes and see what you get.

[leeyah]

Muyongshi, I understand your good intentions, but I've no idea what you're talking about

However, for OP and anyone else who need further relevant information on the correct pronunciation of 剥掉, which is the topic of this thread, here are a couple of links, which may clear things up a bit:

Same as my e-dict, online source on 剥 says it is read basically as bāo (as in 剥皮 which all comes out as logical input when you type baopi) except in words like 剥夺, 剥离, 剥削, 剥落 (which also come out as intelligent input with bo, but only bao goes with 掉 typed after it ) & in a number of chengyu where the same word 剥皮... is read as bōpi etc. It was because of this that I asked OP to give us some context.

& I also found this: http://www.findname.cn/%E5%89%A5%E6%8E%89.html

Anyway, as I am not a native Mandarin speaker, I don't dare claim anything as certain, but I find things like this very interesting (I love Chinese!), so I also suggested possible misunderstandings in post #6, because I thought it might be interesting to others, too. I can't tell whether one would be understood correctly by saying simply bodiao, so I hope someone else will be able to provide a reliable answer.

[Hofmann]

muyongshi means do this:

"拔掉"

"撥掉"

[HashiriKata]

so I hope someone else will be able to provide a reliable answer.

Do you? And how do we know that it is reliable if someone who doesn't know keeps arguing against it?

[Artem]

& since you mentioned it as 'typo' - there can be no typo with characters pronounced differently, you either type bo or you type ba, and get 拨 or 拔 respectively

Not everyone types by pronunciation. There are other methods of input. 五笔字型 definitely could result in this typo.

拔掉 is common. 拨掉 doesn't make any sence to me on its own, and definitely doesn't make sense in those examples.

Also, together as a set it should be bo1diao4， not baodiao. Also my IME infact type 剥掉 when I type bodiao, while baodiao gets me 爆掉 保钓 暴掉 报掉 only.

ABC dictionary will confirm this. So will n词酷 (mouse over the 剥掉 in the definition)：

http://www.nciku.com/search/en/detail/peel%20off/1709816

EDIT: I thought I'd mention my thoughts on when 剥 should be read as bao and when as bo. Generally I will say bao when I mean peel/skin (i.e. peel banana 剥香蕉). I will say it as bo when I mean forcefully rip something off (in some cases abstract 剥夺）. A good example is 剥画皮 which should be read as bo1hua4pi2, not bao1hua4pi2.

[sthubbar]

Thanks for all the great input. It seems like we still have some people strongly advocating bo1 and others saying bao1.

Any native speakers want to chime in?

I agree, that Sogou Pinyin, only accepts bo1diao4 and not bao1diao4.

[HashiriKata]

Yes, this is a good example to know, which could be easily mistaken as bao, due to the reading of 剥皮.

Poor 剥皮!

And, I hope it'd help, 剥皮 can also be read as bo1pi2; and as a rule, 剥 in most compounds is read as bo1 and not bao1.

[trien27]

剥 when pronounced in Cantonese is "Mok", which, as a dialect that comes before Mandarin would most likely to be correct, since it's close to guess what? : "bo". "Bo" might be correct for 剥, most of the time depending on meaning and context.

剥皮 = "Mok pei" in Cantonese = "bo pi" in Mandarin, which means "to peel [the skin/outer shell, etc... ]"

Yes, this is a good example to know, which could be easily mistaken as bao, due to the reading of 剥皮.

To me, "bo pi" = "To peel the skin, etc...", while "bao pi" = "The foreskin". Get them confused, and it will be a good laugh.

muyongshi means do this:

"拔掉"

"撥掉"

When in doubt, try to find the original Traditional character. I think that's what he thinks, just not what you think. 抜 in Simplfied = 撥 in Traditional. 抜 and 拔 is similar in writing, and the pronunciation are similar so it'll be easily confused if you're not careful. There's no other equivalents for 拔 in Traditional Chinese, so there's only one character, and so someone's doing something really wrong and got the reader all but confused instead of being amused.

People always make comparisons to English when comparing Chinese by using pronunciation ONLY, which is impossible in Chinese due to too many homophones!!!

Edited August 9, 2009 at 02:37 AM by roddy