Pinyin etymology

[buzhongren]

Its common in PinYin introduction that each consonant is given a sound for example b,p,m,f followed by sounds for simple and compound finals like a,ai, and nasal compound sounds like an,ang. The sounds themselves have no meaning except when combined as consonant+final (ignoring tone) to create the sound for a Chinese character. Is the average Chinese native speaker also able to differentiate consonants and final sounds or is it 'one' sound to him. In other words if I was able to annunciate consonant and final sounds would it make any sense to him. Chinese teachers (the ones Ive seen) who teach Engish are able to break a Chinese character into the two parts. Is this something they learned in addition or can it be reasonably inferred from the 'one' sound of the character by any native speaker.

xiele,

Jim

[catmachine]

Hi Jim! Although i can't quite understand your questions, i think i can give you some hints:

* Actually some Chinese characters don't have consonants, for example 爱(ai), 欧(ou).

* When we were learning Chinese, the consonants and final sounds were taught separately. When we saw b,p,m,f,g,k,l,h, we read it out as "bo, po, mo, fo, ge, ke, le, he". It's the way Chinese consonants are read. So it doesn't make sense when we're just reading the consonants, .

* Sometimes our Chinese teacher broke a Chinese character into consonants and final sounds and let we follow and read it out. I think it's just a way for us to remember the character's announciation better and read it clearer and more exactly.

I hope these can be useful to you. ^ ^

[buzhongren]

catmachine: Hi Jim! Although i can't quite understand your questions, i think i can give you some hints:

Let me state it another way. Does the native speaker have any comprehension of what we call consonant and final as we learn it in PinYin. Lets say Im having trouble differenting my sh and x sounds in 实习 shí​xí. Is he going to help me with sh or x assuming he knows about consonants or have me parrot his words till I get it right because he doesnt know about consonants.

xiele,

Jim

[Lugubert]

I don't see pinyin as "consonant and final" but as initial + final, and it seems that this is how syllables are interpreted by Chinese people.

One Chinese person, holding an engineering degree from home and having studied Swedish for immigrants at a Swedish University, had very different pronunciations of the "a"s in pinyin pan and pang. I wanted to know if that dialect also had a difference between the "e"s in pen and peng. My question wasn't even understood. "They're different words!" or something like that. Separating the Chinese syllables into single consonant and vowel sounds was a totally alien idea.

[tooironic]

Yeah, that's true. Pinyin is, after all, only a romanisation system and not a pronunciation guide. That's one of its downfalls, as learners often assume the "e" in "peng" is the same as it is in "pen", or the "a" in "pan" is the same as in "pang", etc.

[renzhe]

I think that most native Chinese people will be able to tell you that "tang" and "pang" have the same final, or that "bo" and "bang" have the same initial.

But it boils down to the initial and final. You can't split those down further into vowels and consonants.

[buzhongren]

renzhe: But it boils down to the initial and final. You can't split those down further into vowels and consonants.

Initial is a better term than consonant. I least I didnt use vowel for final. I didnt know if separation of initial and final as sounds was part of Chinese understanding.

xiele,

Jim

[imron]

Very much so. For reference, the Chinese terms are:

initial - 声母

final - 韵母

[OneEye]

Initials and finals have been known about for a very long time. The 切韻 Qièyùn dictionary, published in AD 601, was written to record the correct pronunciation of the characters by listing characters with the same initial and final (known as 反切 fǎnqiè). So, for example, 東 dōng is 德紅切 dé hóng qiè, where 切 signifies that it is a 反切 spelling. This particular example works in modern Mandarin too, if you don't account for tone. 德紅 de hong = dong. As far as tones, the first character signified 陰 yīn or 陽 yáng, and the second character signified 平 píng, 上 shàng, 去 qù, or 入 rù. In Middle Chinese, 德 was 陰入 and 紅 was 陽平, so 東 was 陰平.

P.S. I took the example from this Wikipedia page.

[Don_Horhe]

Let me state it another way. Does the native speaker have any comprehension of what we call consonant and final as we learn it in PinYin. Lets say Im having trouble differenting my sh and x sounds in 实习 shí​xí. Is he going to help me with sh or x assuming he knows about consonants or have me parrot his words till I get it right because he doesnt know about consonants.

Yes, I think they do.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine and myself went to get some custom clothes made at Wuhan's famous Yanzhilu. We were going through the maze of stalls that offer anything from silk to coarse cottor fabric to mink pelts, checking stuff out. The first time we saw a mink pelt (we didn't know what it was at the time), my friend asked the stall owner what it was and she said 水貂(diāo) - mink. Neither of us knew what that meant, so she wrote it down for us on a piece of paper, saying "Shuǐdiāo*, diāo. Dē, yāo, diāo.", which we then looked up in a dictionary. She, out of her own accord, had divided the syllable into initial and final for us to understand her better. Now I doubt that a woman selling fabrics on the second floor of a shabby building in Wuhan, nice and helpful as she was, holds a degree in Chinese language, Linguistics, Applied linguistics or Teaching Chinese as a foreign language. Therefore, I'm assuming this is something she learned in school and that most people would be able to do if they had to.

*It was actually 'suǐdiāo', but that's another issue.

[vampire]

simply ask a chinese to read a character in the way you read 习 as 西姨习, most will know what you mean, people are not familiar with these terms, but that doesnt mean they dont know what these things are.

some syllables cant be broken apart though, like zhi chi shi, these are called 整体认读音节 if I remember it correctly

[catmachine]

Don_Horhe :...saying "Shuǐdiāo*, diāo. Dē, yāo, diāo.",

...had divided the syllable into initial and final for us to understand her better.

...this is something she learned in school and that most people would be able to do if they had to.

Yes, it's just so.

Lets say Im having trouble differenting my sh and x sounds in 实习 shí​xí. Is he going to help me with sh or x assuming he knows about consonants or have me parrot his words till I get it right because he doesnt know about consonants.

sh and x are exsiting as consonants(or initials) in Chinese indeed. A Chinese teacher will certainly be teaching you how to pronounce sh and x until you know their difference. When he is teaching you, he will pronounce sh as "shi", x as "xi". Or if you still have trouble, he will tell you the difference in tongue's positions. Parroting his words is the last resort.

Edited February 17, 2010 at 01:20 PM by chrix
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[buzhongren]

I can drill down into Tudou.Com with the suggested pinyin related terms 声母, 韵母, 整体认读音节 and bring up a treasure trove of videos on pinyin pronunciation.

My favorite so far a complete video PinYin lesson with bad sound:-?:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/g1X0DMeunvk/

xiele,

Jim

[catmachine]

buzhongren :I can drill down into Tudou.Com with the suggested pinyin related terms 声母, 韵母, 整体认读音节 and bring up a treasure trove of videos on pinyin pronunciation.

If i were you, I would never trust the pronunciation in tapes or mp3s or videos. I only trust the pronunciation from a real person who is in front of me. So, if it is possible, try to find a good teacher to teach you. For beginners, tongue's position is really important.

[buzhongren]

catmachine: If i were you, I would never trust the pronunciation in tapes or mp3s or videos.

What is good for the first grader is good enough for me versus an erudite speaking fellow in a studio talking about pinyin sounds probably to an imagined audience of teachers. I see the pinyin character and sound associated together as animation or a live skit. Ive already learned somethings how initial and finals are separate sounds and brought together in a pseudo or neutral sound and then assigned a tone. When I hear simple initial and final I can picture the pinyin in my minds eye. I want to do that for everysound. Its almost like I see pinyin scrolling in my brain. The audio and video material is good enough for listening skills. Ive worked with a teacher on speaking skills. I realized then listening skills best fit my learning psychology before speaking. There is more to pinyin than meets the eye. Its interesting to see the younger grades material. You can tell by then the brain is hardwired for language and theyre teaching sounds already understood but not formalized.

xiele,

Jim

[catmachine]

I think you're in a phase alike, when i was beginning to contact Japanese. There're 50 phonograms in Japanese. At first i was just interested in Japanese animes and pop musics, so i listened a lot and tried to recognize every single sound and wrote them down on my own symbols. Meanwhile i read the subtitles and matched every sound to its phonogram. It was a long period with passion only before i decided to learn Japanese formally, with teachers, when i felt i had no trouble in recognizing every phonogram. Maybe Japanese pronounciation is easier to learn, i dont know. Some Japanese learners find it hard to memorize all the 50 phonograms in a short time. But I think there's no necessity in doing that.

So, if you're willing, you can just keep listening before you feel you're on the way.

[chrix]

How does your example about the phonograms in Japanese relate to the OP's experience of learning Chinese?

Some Japanese learners find it hard to memorize all the 50 phonograms in a short time. But I think there's no necessity in doing that.

There's no necessity in memorising the 50 phonograms in Japanese? I don't think so, the first thing people have to do in Japanese 101 is memorise the first set of 50 phonograms, ASAP. (the second set can wait)...

[imron]

For a complete pinyin sound table, check out this site.

Each sound has the various tones, plus an initial + final = sound recording for each syllable.

[catmachine]

chrix : There's no necessity in memorising the 50 phonograms in Japanese? I don't think so...

I mean, there's no necessity in memorize them in a short time. If you have to do so, it will be a rather painful experience. I found i could memorize all of them after

i listened a lot and tried to recognize every single sound and wrote them down on my own symbols. Meanwhile i read the subtitles and matched every sound to its phonogram.

In that long period i just learnt for fun and didn't consider that i would one day start learning Japanese formally.

[buzhongren]

catmachine: I think you're in a phase alike, when i was beginning to contact Japanese.

There is an old linguistic phrase: You learn to speak by listening. I found some movie video clips with pinyin, literal English, and translation. That is what I look for in grammar books. Its just another way to learn.

Here is one of my favorite pinyin tables:

http://www.newconceptmandarin.com/support/Intro_Pinyin.asp

It is embedded PinYin sounds. You also learn the final tones and the pitch of the initial are unrelated. This is the only site Ive found that points it out. Pinyin is more than romanization for the dummies.

xiele,

Jim