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putong vs. pubian


Pengyou

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I think something that is not extraordinary and has nothing special about it is putong. Something that is widely seen/accepted or is popular is pubian. Something that is putong is usually pubian, eg smoking and divorce. An ordinary man is a putongren, and it is generally believed (pubian renwei) that it is not bad being one.

 

PS - but of course the putong in putonghua (普通話) and putongfa (普通法/common law) does not mean that they are nothing special.  It means 普遍通行.

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My Mandarin-speaking colleagues here in Taipei assure me that in the compound 普遍, 遍 is pronounced pian4, not bian4.

Well, it's interesting that they are more authoritative than any dictionary I've consulted or the teachers who taught me.

Perhaps it's a regional thing, however you'd be advised to check a dictionary before posting something that unhelpful to the actual topic at hand.

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you'd be advised to check a dictionary before posting something that unhelpful to the actual topic at hand.

 

 

Chill. He's reporting evidence from the field. He's not claiming that something is right or wrong. A lot of these threads devolve into exactly the same thing, people reporting what they've seen, heard, or been told, or how people have reacted to what they've said. The overwhelming lesson that can be picked up from this forum is that there is a lot of variation in Chinese, and what may be 'standard' in one place sounds strange in another.

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But he wasn't just reporting what he'd seen/heard, rather he was claiming an "authority" in the pronunciation as he was "assured" of how it was pronounced by his colleagues. Saying, "In Taiwan they say it this way" is very different from what was actually said.

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Pengyou:

" I am very open to suggestions for other websites"

Amazon.cn for buying a proper dictionary? MDBG and the like are great for a quick look up for a translation, but you need example sentences and usage notes. There used to be (and I'd hope still are) books for the old HSK exams with info on just this kind of problem. 

 

For reference, the Guifan includes a note on 遍 specifying that it should only ever be read bian, not pian - which presumably means it happens often enough that it needs to be warned against. I don't recall ever hearing the pian pronunciation, and I think if you use it on the mainland as a foreigner it'll be assumed to be an error, rather than a different usage you've picked up somewhere. 

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No, I wasn't claiming any "authority".

 

Having heard only the "pupian" pronunciation, I checked various dictionaries and saw "pubian" being listed as the standard pronunciation. So I brought up the issue to my Taiwanese colleagues, and all three of the ones I asked (they are educated Taipei-ites in their 30s) said quite adamantly it was "pupian". It's a simple unscientific field survey, and nowhere did I claim this as authoritative.

 

I could do the same with the pronunciation of 血, which in Taiwan tends to be pronounced "xue3" rather than "xie4". And 期 as qi2 instead of qi1.

 

There are regional differences; that's something people should be aware of. And dictionaries are hardly the be-all and end-all, as anyone who has looked up 幹部 and seen "cadre" as the only listed English translation can tell you.

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My point was the way it was written felt as if it was "authoritative" due to its source, not that you were claiming authority. Also, it sounds like you intended it to be a question not a statement as it was written. All very key points as to how and why I interpreted your post as I did.

My main point is what Roddy brought up, whereas your example of those pronunciations are actual pronunciations just used improperly.

And you're right, dictionaries are hardly the end all, but once again, that was in reference to your initial post's wording.

Sorry for any perceived attack-been a long day for me and I think I wasn't considering my words well enough.

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Per their definition, Chinese should be Pubianhua, not putonghua. I am very open to suggestions for other websites :)

See post #2 from Skylee. It is explained that the 普通的 is actually 普遍通行 and that fits with the definitions you were getting.

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I have been on this website for a long time and have seen countless threads on recommendations of dictionaries.  Perhaps you can do a search?

 

People usually recommend Pleco.  You can download it to your android.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have been using the Wenlin dictionary on my computer for the past 10 years, since I was a student.  I recently had to replace my hd and discovered that my Wenlin disk does not work and that I have to spend a lot of $$ to get a replacement :(   I installed Pleco on my phone in May, while I was in HK (I live in Shenzhen) but then a couple of months later it would not work - I think it tried to update itself and made it stop working.  I don't remember the actual wording of the error message but it made me think that the problem was the same as the problem which kept me from accessing Pleco in the mainland in the first place.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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