Is bopomofo worth learning?

[Friday]

My biggests problems with learning Chinese are pronouncing words and remembering the tone direction. I currently use the pinyin system of the mainland. I have more difficulty remembering the spelling of pinyin than remembering most characters. After reading about bopomofo/zhuyi pinyin, I wonder if studying this would help me pronounce words with less interference from English and remember tone direction more efficiently?

[daofeishi]

I assume you are talking about remembering tones, not remembering how to spell the pinyin syllables themselves. I don't see how learning a new transliteration system would help. The tonal information is captured by pinyin, so why would you learn a system that just captures the tones in a different way?

Learning how to pronounce words has little to do with how you spell them (Tough? Thorough?) Instead it is about making your mind understand that in Chinese, tones are inseparable from phonemes. What you probably have to do to stop mixing up tones is to be strict with yourself, and make sure don't get into the habit of "accepting" wrong tones from yourself. Give yourself a metaphorical kick to your butt whenever you make a mistake, and if you are not sure about how a word is pronounced, check the dictionary or ask a friend.

[Friday]

Well, I guess there are 3 problems:

1. I often confuse the spelling of the words in pinyin (chong/chuang/cheng/chang), however, have little difficulty remembering how to write the characters.

2. It is difficult to remember the tone direction.

3. I can't properly produce the sounds, even when I know the proper spelling and tone. I can hear myself speaking it wrong, and know how it words should sound properly, but cannot create the proper sounds and tone.

I just wonder if using an entirely different spelling system will help me with #1 and #2. I doubt it can help me with the more serious problem, #.

[jono1001]

I too have difficulty remembering pinyin and find hanzi much less work to learn. I have to make a conscience effort to learn pinyin. I would not change to bopomofo as that system is not widely used outside of Taiwan. I make an effort to learn pinyin using Quizlet flashcards, mnemonics and rote learning to learn pinyin.

[imron]

3. I can't properly produce the sounds, even when I know the proper spelling and tone. I can hear myself speaking it wrong, and know how it words should sound properly, but cannot create the proper sounds and tone.

This is actually your main problem. Fix this, and #1 and #2 will solve themselves. Once you have the pronunciation down pat and remembered correctly, it's easy to go backwards from the pronunciation to get the pinyin and the tone.

My advice would be to come up with a list of all the ones you can't produce correctly, or ones you have difficulty differentiating, and then going over them with someone who can tell you what you're doing wrong and what you need to do in order to correct it. Native speakers may not necessarily be best suited to helping you with this unless they have received training in this area, as otherwise they'll be able to tell you you're wrong but may have difficulty expressing why you are wrong and how you need to correct it.

[xiaotao]

Chinesetapes.com carries a learning aid called Champion Bo Po Mo Hanyu Pinyin flashcards. They are cleverly designed and I taught my then 3 year old in 3 week. She read them off like she read the ABCs. I think it's helpful to learn this system if you are planning to learn traditional characters.

[skylee]

I just want to point out that there is not necessarily a relationship between zhuyin fuhao and traditional characters. I use traditional characters but I don't use bopomofo.

One factor that the OP might wish to consider is that the pronunciation standard in Taiwan (which uses zhuyin fuhao) is not 100％ the same as the Mainland's so using zhuyin fuhao might have some implications on what one learns. And if you plan to take the Mainland's putonghua exams in future this does not seem to be a smart move. Don't switch simply because you have the options.

[jbradfor]

Why not give it a try? Personally, I think bopomofo is surprising easy to learn -- I basically picked up most of it via using Taiwanese dictionaries without meaning to. While I doubt it will help you remember the tone, it does have the advantage over pinyin of not confusing the Chinese pronunciation with the pinyin-in-your-native-language pronunciation, and sometimes a different viewpoint helps one break out of a mental rut. Worst that happens is you've wasted a couple hours.