Phonetics of Modern Standard Mandarin (普通话)

[Hofmann]

So, why the Chinese university fetish?

[BanZhiYun]

@陈德聪 I never said anything to OneEye, I was talking in general.
Now, you are telling me the definition of something, fine. I am telling you that the term you're telling me is not what Pinyin is. So, your point is what again? You are telling me terms, I am telling you that Pinyin is not the term you're talking about. Sigh for a native speaker to be at this level. #facepalm

[BanZhiYun]

Chinese Universities (as well as Taiwanese and Singaporean) are better than others at teaching Chinese Linguistics. So, it's my major, why not have a fetish on who's good at it?

[Lu]

Chinese Universities (as well as Taiwanese and Singaporean) are better than others at teaching Chinese Linguistics.

How do you know that? (Honest question.)

[陳德聰]

Pfft, if you can't understand the term then how can you make any reliable conclusion about whether pinyin is an orthographic system that fits the definition? I made no comment about whether or not pinyin is a phonetic alphabet, just that you completely misunderstood what everyone else was referring to, and that your logic was flawed. But I think when so many people are all directing their comments at you I suppose they start to blur together.

[OneEye]

I don't have a PhD, but I did go to grad school (and didn't finish) in Taiwan.

 

I'm also not interested in engaging with OP any further—there is a glaring Dunning-Kruger issue here, and I have no time for that.

[Angelina]

Welcome to the forums OP, a little bit of imperialism here and there.

No wonder pīnyīn was not used in Taiwan for many years (too "Russian" thus dangerous).

I am trying to change this situation, but things are the way they are now.

Let's hope people start opening up instead of doing what they have been told.

I was thinking about leaving the forums, but decided to give people a second chance. Also, I hope I will be given a second chance. Especially this.

[lips]

This is better than Chinese television, that's for sure. I think I'll skip 父亲的身份 tonight just to be sure I don't miss anything from this and the other thread.

[陳德聰]

I miss Pedroski.

[Angelina]

So, what advice would older (and more experienced) people give OP, a young first year (undergraduate) student at the PKU Department of Chinese, in order for him to learn more about the phonetics of Modern Standard Mandarin?

I suggested Praat and shared Ladefoged with him.

I also like interdisciplinary work, a little bit of neuroscience and acoustics can be useful. Semiotics is a must. It is also important to learn about the history of Chinese, even when you want to focus on Modern Standard Mandarin, basic understanding of history is necessary.

[Lu]

Read and study widely on the subject. Also, practice humility. The more you know, the more you realise how much you don't know, and so you (general you) need to keep in mind that when you think you know everything, you probably know very little. This goes for pretty much all subjects, not just linguistics.

[Demonic_Duck]

Pīnyīn was not designed to help Chinese kids learn Mandarin better, it was designed to replace Chinese characters and it was designed to be phonetic. It is not phonetic enough now, maybe people like BanZhiYun can help improve the glitches.

OK, a few points to pick apart here.

Firstly, the immediate goal of pinyin was always to improve literacy. You're right that some hardline language reformers wanted it to replace characters, but over time they became an outspoken minority. Zhou Youguang, the "father of pinyin", was never one of the hardliners.

Secondly, the goal of complete phoneticity in a writing system is a pipe dream. Even if you manage to encode all of the phonology of one dialect, your system will still fail to be phonetic for other dialects, and over time (due to sound shifts) will cease to be phonetic for any dialect.

Thirdly, pinyin is very unlikely to be changed at this point. It's an excellent system already, has country-wide and even worldwide acceptance and usage, and has superseded every other romanization system in mainstream usage. And the people least likely to change it are foreigners.

[Angelina]

(Book recommendation:

《阅读经典 ：美国大学的人文教育 》

徐贲)

It would not be convenient to modify pinyin, yet, suggestions are fine. I personally think that more pinyin would mean less rote learning at Chinese schools. Just a hypothesis. If anyone wants to make actual changes to anything, research has to be done first.

An undergrad thesis proposing changes that would affect millions would raise a few eyebrows.

On the other hand, an undergrad thesis where a writing system is analyzed, with an emphasis on phoneme-grapheme pairs sounds ok.

[BanZhiYun]

@Demonic_Duck @Angelina @eddyf (since he's just saying his honest opinion and not trying to be condescending and "authoritative" on an online forum) are the only people here who have any valuable insight.
@OneEye, if we are to offend each other, you are the one "that didn't finish"[your education], so there we go. As if you have the basic knowledge to engage in a conversation with me, lol. I hope you have time to fill in your lack of knowledge. As if I could care less if you had time "for that" or not. Do you think your opinion is important to people on a forum? Lol'ed @ that. If you have anything valuable to add, please go ahead. If you have an "unfinished" opinion, keep it to yourself. I don't have time for people like you. I am used to much better surroundings, sorry.

@陈德聪 There's a common characteristic between "so many people". Now, how can you know I misunderstood it when I did a conclusion that you didn't understand? Rofl. Now, that was a fail of an argument right there. I didn't see the logic behind "not understanding the term in English", with not understanding it as a whole [in my native tongue or Chinese]. Now, go try and get some breeze, because your brain is totally dead on making cognitive conclusions.

@Demonic_Duck I totally agree with your post. Therefore, since we (as foreigners) are totally unable to change how pinyin works, it'd be best for us to understand it's patterns as a transcription. 

[BanZhiYun]

@Lu, that's why I opened this thread, to seek other people's opinions. Then I realized people on this forum are what you are talking about, aka, not "professional". What I learned from this experience is to ask professors @ prominent Chinese (+ taiwanese and singaporean) schools (again and forever) whenever I have a question.  I never went arguing with people in the first place, people with lack of knowledge decided they are authorities on an online forum. So, your statement is hilarious concerning me.

 

 

How do you know that? (Honest question.) 

 

Now, how do I know that? Just by meeting people studying Chinese in different countries and their overall understanding of it. (includes people on this forum and people in real life.) 

[BanZhiYun]

It's my last post (since there are only about 3 people who are trying to be objective and not personal, aka this thread is overall useless):
About being "superior", you are trying to make me look bad, but I've said numerous times on this thread: I might be better than most foreigners, but I will never be better than Chinese scholars themselves. (therefore, I'd be inferior to them) So, if you felt offended, that's your own problem. I don't feel myself superior to everyone ("Dunning-Kruger issue here", you sure know how to properly use this? Obviously not.) So, trying to be personal to me, while picking up on only a few of the points i have made, is very childish. I've answered to @eddyf that I feel Chinese scholars will forever be better than me. So, good to know you guys like to negate that and try to be personal with me. Is that what you've learned from going to college? Lol. I won't talk about the place you've been to (I don't know which school it is, nor do I care about that), but apparently, you (to those trying to be personal and totally failing at it) have obviously had zero use of it. As I've said, I've told my professors about the opinions of some of  you, and they totally laughed at it. No wonder why most of them feel that there are some "wanna be" Chinese scholars in Western countries, when they lack knowledge. (our teachers like to pick up on mistakes made by both foreigners and other Chinese scholars, so hopefully you guys won't be too offended by my statement.) On the other hand, I am very content with whom I am at this stage of my life. 

 

To everyone that's not @Demonic_Duck @Angelina @eddyf (in this thread only):

"‘学而不思则罔’者，言为学之法。既从师学，则自思其馀蕴。若虽从师学，而不寻思其义，则罔然无所得也。‘思而不学则殆’者，言但自寻思，而不往从师学，终卒不得其义，则徒使人精神疲劳倦殆。"

 

Hopefully this will be locked as it's absolutely useless besides maybe 5 posts.

[Demonic_Duck]

Not sure what I did to deserve the dubious honor of being on your non-shitlist. OneEye and 陳德聰 are both considerably more knowledgeable than me about linguistics in general.

 

When you are at a novice level academically (e.g. first year undergrad), you would do well to learn from those more knowledgeable (i.e. most of the academic community). The fact that they aren't the preeminent experts in their field doesn't somehow make their knowledge worthless to you. Otherwise, unless you go to one of the top universities in the world, you'll have to discount the knowledge of even your own professors.

 

If you're going to quote from 论语, look no further than “三人行必有我师”.

[BanZhiYun]

Well, I am going to one of them, especially if we're looking @ Chinese language. (Just a basic info: PKU is ranked #8 in Linguistics in the world.) Otherwise, why would I waste so much time coming to China, lol. Now, knowledge on general linguistics doesn't mean a basic grasp of Chinese's specifics (and we're talking about Phonetics here). As seen from their posts, they might be knowledgable on Linguistics in general, but I haven't seen a single post where they say anything valuable concerning Chinese Phonetics. You, on the other hand, have done so, so why would I go and "shit" on you? Lol. Besides that, OneEye and 陈德聪 are so arrogant, with little to no back up when it comes ti Chinese, not to mention being condscending. In short, absolutely nothing to "learn" from  them. Thanks for your advice, though, I will keep doing that when I meet a worthy teacher/professors/person. And I like the quote from 《论语》that you posted.  Then again, I didn't quote 《论语》 itself, but a commentary on it made by 邢昺, but that's some additional info there.

[Demonic_Duck]

When I said "more knowledgeable about linguistics in general", I meant that their knowledge is both more broad-based and deeper than mine, with respect to both linguistics and the Chinese language (and the intersection between the two). I should have made that clearer.

[BanZhiYun]

I am not the one to speak about either, obviously everyone has their education in a specific field. Now, I am pretty sure they are quite good at general linguistics (I'd hope so at least) since they're finished (more or less) with their education. Concerning their understanding on Chinese Phonetics, they have their flaws. All examples I've given are basically my teacher's examples (who is obviously an expert  on Chinese Phonetics). In conclusion, it really shows that people who have "made fun" of my examples have no idea what they examples themselves are meant to prove. Or are being too personal about it. (This includes whoever said that using Pinyin to read other latin languages is a silly example. That's my teacher's example, go tell her that, I'd love to see that intercation, lol. That example is meant to mean Pinyin is not phonetic.) Anyway, yeah, I never meant to argue, that's not why I opened this thread. But why should I take offense from people who, from my point of view, have a lack of knowledge in what I am asking about? Simple as that.