Phonetics of Modern Standard Mandarin (普通话)

[eddyf]

There's a simple and unambiguous mapping between pinyin and the sounds in Mandarin. How is that not phonetic? Even the name itself "拼音" suggests that it is supposed to be phonetic. Yes you have to look at it more than one letter at a time sometimes to know how to pronounce it, but it's unambiguous and the rules are easy to learn. If pinyin is not a phonetic writing system then what kind of writing system do you call it?

 

Coming from a language like English which has no standardized way of unambiguously specifying pronunciations in writing (except using a more general system like IPA), I found pinyin to be a relief. I can know for sure how to pronounce words without ever actually hearing someone say them.

[BanZhiYun]

Simple example. Pinyin uses the latin alphabet. So let's assume we have a person whose native tongue uses the latin alphabet as it's writing system. This person can't speak any Chinese. Make him try and read Pinyin and let's see if his pronunciation will be even close to what it should be. The answer is, it'll be very, very far from the authentic sound, despite this person being able to read latin characters (ones that Pinyin uses). IPA is phonetic. There is a difference between phonetic alphabets and transcriptions. Pinyin is a transcription of Chinese characters.

[BanZhiYun]

Make anyone who's native tongue uses latin  (our prerequisite is he hasn't learned any Chinese) as it's alphabet (be it English, French, Spanish, anything you want) read "ji" and "zi" in Pinyin, there's a very low chance  that person would read them accurately, unless he can "read Pinyin" (aka, have studied Chinese). 

[BanZhiYun]

I just asked our phonetics teacher about someone who has a research on 《拼音方案》(a Chinese scholar), his name is 周有光. He's written 《汉语拼音正词法基本规则》。I am going to read what he had to say about 《拼音方案》, I'd advise you guys to do the same. (I always advise reading what Chinese scholars had to say about Chinese phenomena, not foreigner's.)

[eddyf]

Kind of a side question: Since you automatically discount anything written by Chinese scholars who happen to be foreigners, don't you find it a little ironic/bittersweet that you are studying to become a Chinese scholar yourself, but as a foreigner, by your own rules no one can ever trust any academic works that you ever write?

 

I mean, I don't disagree that works by Chinese scholars are an excellent resource but not being a native speaker should not unilaterally disqualify a scholar from being taken seriously... You even dismissed Thomas Wade (creator of Wade-Giles) who by all accounts was one of the prominent sinologists of the 19th century.

[BanZhiYun]

Yes, I do think mine future works won't be as good as any nowadays (or prominent) Chinese scholars. To me, always and forever, 以中国人学者为标准. This is a relative saying. Mine works would (most likely) be better than other foreigner's, but they will of course not be on the level of Chinese scholars. That's the truth and I accept it. Why should it be ironic?

[BanZhiYun]

Thomas Wade lived a century ago. (He died in 1895) PKU (the oldest school in China) was established in 1898. After Thomas Wade's death. So, we can conclude he never had a proper education on Chinese by Chinese scholars. So, first of all he was a scholar from a decade ago, second, he never had an education on what he was a scholar on. Therefore, I believe nowadays scholars are much more reliable than him. As  the ones after 100 years in the future should be better than us right now. So, I am not dismissing him for being a foreigner, but for different reasons. But he has his 贡献, which I am grateful for.

[li3wei1]

BanZhiYun: eddyf explained how pinyin is a phonetic rendering of Chinese, and your counterargument is that someone who hasn't learned it, and tries to apply the rules of a different language, will mispronounce it. Well, duh. Do you not see how silly your example is? Spanish often held up as an example of a transparent language, in that every letter has one sound (pinyin is transparent at the syllable level). Yet, if I had no exposure to Spanish, and you showed me 'mañana', and I pronounced it to rhyme with 'banana', would that prove anything about Spanish? No. You may as well show Chinese characters to someone who has never seen them before, and deduce that they are meaningless.

 

Pinyin uses the same letters many European languages do, but it was not designed with any of those languages in mind. Live with it.

 

Oh, and if you're curious, I am not ethnically Chinese, so you can disregard everything I say.

[BanZhiYun]

Obviously you didn't understand what I said. Do you know what phonetic means? Obviously not. So, duh, your post is silly/dumb.

[BanZhiYun]

A basic explanation that maybe (read: hopefully) you'd understand: "Transcription should not be confused with translation, which means representing the meaning of a source language text in a target language (e.g. translating the meaning of an English text into Spanish), or withtransliteration which means representing a text from one script in another (e.g. transliterating a Cyrillic text into the Latin script)."

I said Pinyin is a transcription. Do you know what that means? Your example is plain dumb. Reading 'mañana as banana is basically dyslexia. Do you even know what you're talking about? I said a person whose language uses the latin alphabet would read the Chinese "zi" as "zi" the way it's read in his language, which is not how it should sound in Chinese. Try it out with anyone who speaks English, French, Spanish and has never learnt Chinese. So before talking, make sure you comprehand what's been said, mhm?

[陳德聰]

Here we go with BanZhiYun fully misunderstanding what people are saying haha. Your pinyin argument is as stupid as saying if you asked someone who didn't know IPA to read a word written in it that they would not be able to therefore it's not phonetic. 豈有此理？

[BanZhiYun]

Here's the "professional worker" who has no idea what's transcription and phonetic alphabet. Fully misunderstanding his "profession". What I am saying is that, you can not use Pinyin to read words that are not Chinese, aka it's not Phonetic. You can use phonetic alphabets to read any language (IPA). Of course you need to learn how to read it. It's you who has 0 knowledge what you are talking about. Once again, why are you commenting when  you lack knowledge? Didn't I say professors are laughing at you already? It's time to stop. If  you don't understand what I am saying, that doesn't mean I misunderstand what people are saying. 学而不思则罔，思而不学则殆。Didn't you learn from yesterday to today? Sigh.

[Lu]

BanZhiYun, you mention you're a first-year student. OneEye has a PhD in Chinese linguistics. You couldn't have known that, but I still find it rather hilarious to see you try and explain his own subject to him.

 

Chinese scholars have written a great deal of relevant and interesting work on Chinese linguistics, phonetics and whatnot. However, there is also a host of Western scholars who know a great deal more than you do now, and whom you could learn from. It's rather short-sighted to discount everything ever written by Westerners just because they're not Chinese. Remember, you only just started on this subject. You know more about it then ever before, and more than all your friends, but a lot less than people who have been studying it for longer.

 

Lastly, please look up the difference between 'its' and 'it's'. It will make you look smarter when you get this right.

[陳德聰]

Looks like it's your English problem again. You don't seem to realise that "phonetic alphabet" commonly refers to phonemic orthography.

[陳德聰]

But to be fair it also refers to phonetic transcription, which is what IPA is. It's just that everyone else is talking about orthography while you're howling about transcription.

[BanZhiYun]

@Lu Thanks for your input. You have something to say on the subject? I admire people (foregienrs [not only Westerners]) who have a Ph.D in Chinese Linguistics from a prominent Chinese University. If not, then I don't really care. Not to mention that he has mistakes, so here's a good question: the equality of education lacked, or he didn't study well?

If you want something else to add on this Chinese Phonetics, go ahead. Anything unrelated, as I've said to many other people, is totally unvaluable, no? It's an online forum. On top of that, I said, if people want to prove a point, write an academic work on it. Whether I look smart or not in English, is not as important to me. Thanks again for your input.

On a side note, alphabets are not phonetic, because you can not use the same alphabet (latin) to read other language. They'd be similiar, but not the same. If people don't get this, well then, I am not the one to "teach" basics.

[BanZhiYun]

My point is that Pinyin is transcription, aka it's not "phonemic orthography. " Maybe you don't comprehend that. Anything valuable you have to say?

[BanZhiYun]

So, it's not me misunderstanding what you're talking about, it's you not understanding what I am talking about. And that is a two way street. Either me not being able to explain, or none of you knowing what I mean. Another proof of  your lack of knowledge on Chinese Phonetic. Sigh. @Lu, so, Ph.D you were saying?

[陳德聰]

Are you daft? Lu was talking about OneEye, the guy on the first page you tried to brush off.

I'm telling you the definition of an English term, and you're telling me it isn't so. Now who's out of their depth?

[Lu]

If I recall correctly, OneEye's PhD was from Taiwan and Japan. So not China I suppose. My own knowledge on linguistics is only passive. That is, I understand it when people talk about it, but I won't venture explaining too much of it to others.

 

Anyway. Got some more translation to do (hideously difficult linguistics article, coincidentally). I shall follow this thread for entertainment value.