Pinyin used in Taiwan?

[芳芳]

Well, Pinyin is a standard, a code if you want.

That's why it can't be pronounced if not learnde before.

It's OK it has been done this way, then actualy there is no reason why the pinyin would stick to the pronounciation of any language instaed of another.

"q" seems ok to me.

the annoying thing is what Jose said, that every foreigned word written in roman letters is referred as "english". I even heard a chinese guy telling me that "you, all western fellows, you're native language is english rignt?".

And the "english name - 英文名字" on the administrative forms is really bad. Why not write instead "non chinese name" or else?

[atitarev]

...That's why it can't be pronounced if not learnde before.

It's OK it has been done this way, then actualy there is no reason why the pinyin would stick to the pronounciation of any language instaed of another.

"q" seems ok to me...

I agree that Q was a good choice because you really have to differentiate between Q and CH (what they currently signify) the sounds are very different but there are not enough letters.

[Jose]

I'm not quite convinced that the sounds represented as ch and q are two completely different sounds. In fact, both occur with a different set of vowels, which is why the Wade-Giles system can dispense with the distinction altogether. I think that the sound q can be regarded as a merged allophone of ch and c before the front vowels (i and ü). Similarly, j can be regarded as a merged allophone of zh and z before the front vowels, and the same can be said of x with respect to sh and s. So, it would be perfectly possible to devise a consistent system of romanisation for Chinese that doesn't use distinct letters for the sounds represented as q, j and x in hanyu pinyin.

Regarding the original topic, hanyu pinyin, whatever its flaws, has become the standard system that everybody uses, and it is absurd for Taiwan to add to the confusion by adopting another system that nobody, not even the Taiwanese themselves, seems willing to learn.

[in_lab]

And the "english name - 英文名字" on the administrative forms is really bad. Why not write instead "non chinese name" or else?

1. That would allow people to write in Arabic, or other scripts that would be useless to the people that are processing the form.

2. Writing "Li Zhan" is not a non-chinese name, but it's acceptable.

[盤古]

In Taiwan, I was taught that the qi sound is pronounced like you'd pronounce "chee" in English.

I first heard people pronounce qi like something between "chee" and "ts" when I went to mainland China for the first time back in 1999.

I personally can't pronounce qi like chee/ts but just like chee.

[Ncao]

it's not a ch sound....

It sound like a ch to me. The 英文名字 thing could possibly be replace with 外文姓名 or 罗马字姓名.

[wix]

We are going off topic about pinyin in Taiwan. I believe the use of "q" in pinyin traces back to the input of the Russians into the system. I am not 100% sure of this, but perhaps someone can quote something about this.

[lpascoe]

I can't remember when the government here first decided to use tongyong pinyin, but I'd guess at about 3 years ago because I remember getting in a stink about it at the time.

I seem to remember part of the rationale was that tongyong pinyin can, allegedly, be used to romanize Taiwanese and some of the aboriginal languages. Whatever. I'm pretty sure most students of Mandarin and Taiwanese here do not use tongyong pinyin. I certainly don't.

But tongyong pinyin is in use. Kaohsiung's street signs have all changed recently, to what I am assuming is tongyong, causing me to giggle whilst riding about town. Qixian road has turned into Cisian. Hexi has turned into Heshi, or something like that. My electronic dictionary has a tongyong pinyin option. And I've heard there is now a tongyong pinyin Taiwanese version of the Bible!

[gato]

I believe Kaohsiung is a Pan-Green stronghold, which could explain why they're changing the street signs to Tonyong pinyin.

[atitarev]

We are going off topic about pinyin in Taiwan. I believe the use of "q" in pinyin traces back to the input of the Russians into the system. I am not 100% sure of this, but perhaps someone can quote something about this.

No, it's not. Not sure, what you mean. If you mean the keyboard layout - then Q matches with Russian Я ("Ya"). There is no letter Q in Russian or similar, nor it matches the transliteraton of Chinese in Russian.

BTW, would be good to rename the topic and change Tainwan to Taiwan, so that search engines could find it.

Question, will Taiwan ever shift to simplifed characters and what is the role of simplified characters in Taiwan currently? Are they taught, at least, as a "foreign script"? You can't completely ignore them, can you. An they are no similar, so that you could read them easily, just becase you have mastered the full script.

[Outofin]

BTW, would be good to rename the topic and change Tainwan to Taiwan, so that search engines could find it.

I started the thread and am sorry for the typo. But I couldn't correct it. I corrected my post but the name of the thread doesn't change. Could anyone teach me how to do that, or we let roddy to do it?

You can't completely ignore them, can you.

Trust me, they can.

[盤古]

Question, will Taiwan ever shift to simplifed characters and what is the role of simplified characters in Taiwan currently? Are they taught, at least, as a "foreign script"? You can't completely ignore them, can you. An they are no similar, so that you could read them easily, just becase you have mastered the full script.

I don't see Taiwan switching to simplified characters anytime in the near future. Even after Hong Kong and Macau were returned to China, both places are still using traditional characters.

No, you probably can't completely ignore simplified characters even in Taiwan, but one can still live a very normal life without knowing them. Actually, I'd say most Taiwanese know quite a bit of simplified characters as they are often used to write notes and such.

BTW, I mastered simplified characters in matters of days and I'm fluent in traditional characters...

[atitarev]

I don't see Taiwan switching to simplified characters anytime in the near future. Even after Hong Kong and Macau were returned to China' date=' both places are still using traditional characters.

No, you probably can't completely ignore simplified characters even in Taiwan, but one can still live a very normal life without knowing them. Actually, I'd say most Taiwanese know quite a bit of simplified characters as they are often used to write notes and such.

BTW, I mastered simplified characters in matters of days and I'm fluent in traditional characters...[/quote']

Thanks, Pangu. I know the attitudes towards the simplified characters in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau - of course, you can live normal lives just knowing your own language and script. In S.A.R.'s Mandarin is taught and education is gradually switching towards inclusion of the simplified characters to improve the communication with the rest of China. Of course, most people in both places are educated in traditional characters and Cantonese and their general knowledge of Putonghua is getting better but is still low. In Taiwan you use Guoyu, which is almost the same as Putonghua but written in full characters.

My praise to you for mastering simplified characters in a matter of days. Is it on a level where you can recognise them in a text or you can write them by hand without looking them up in dictionaries? So, most Taiwanese have no difficulty reading mainland media, if they wish to? The reverse is harder, and I know many young mainlanders will have problems reading Taiwanese newspapers or web-sites. Wouldn't it make sense to have a common writing system for all Chinese? I know, it's the Communist China who introduced the simplified characters but sticking to traditional characters in Chinese communities much smaller than the mainland China is not going to help communication. Also, many foreign Chinese learners are dealing with a dilemma whether to learn simplified or traditional and in many cases the choice is for simplified for various reasons, this also ensures that they don't study it in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macao.

Using simplified characters and inventing their own romanizations in Taiwan, while 1.3 bln people use simplifed characters and hanyu piniyin for input/education is a purely political thing caused by animosity between Taiwan and mainland China. (I heard opinions about simplified characters being ugly, not being able to read old books, etc, that's not the point).

Singapore and Malaysia switched to simplified in their Chinese schools/universities.

[atitarev]

I started the thread and am sorry for the typo. But I couldn't correct it. I corrected my post but the name of the thread doesn't change. Could anyone teach me how to do that' date=' or we let roddy to do it?

Trust me, they can. [/quote']

>>Could anyone teach me how to do that, or we let roddy to do it?

Yes, that's what I meant. Can we let moderators rename it? Anyone can make a typo but because it's an interesting topic and anyone searching for "Pinyin in Taiwan" will miss these pages.

>>Trust me, they can.

I know, because not many Taiwanese travel to mainland China and mainlanders don't travel to Taiwan because they can't, there is no point, is there? Besides, mainlanders think they can't read Taiwanese newspapers, so they don't.

It's a pity because it's a voice of a democratic nation, which can't be heard on the continent. You may say, many people in PRC know traditional or they can learn them, if they want to - the majority don't know and won't learn them - it's an extra time-consuming effort and kids/parents don't want to be confused in the character learning.

So, how long will the mutual ignoring last for?

[盤古]

My praise to you for mastering simplified characters in a matter of days. Is it on a level where you can recognise them in a text or you can write them by hand without looking them up in dictionaries?

To be honest, my writing skill is rather poor, in both traditional and simplified Chinese as I rarely write anymore, even in English. However, my reading skill is quite good if I may say so myself therefore I type Chinese very well. I can type Chinese, in both simplified and traditional, about as fast, if not faster, than I type English.

So, most Taiwanese have no difficulty reading mainland media, if they wish to?

I'd say they shouldn't have problems in general. Of course every once in a while they may run into a simplified character that is unrecognizable.

The reverse is harder, and I know many young mainlanders will have problems reading Taiwanese newspapers or web-sites. Wouldn't it make sense to have a common writing system for all Chinese? I know, it's the Communist China who introduced the simplified characters but sticking to traditional characters in Chinese communities much smaller than the mainland China is not going to help communication. Also, many foreign Chinese learners are dealing with a dilemma whether to learn simplified or traditional and in many cases the choice is for simplified for various reasons, this also ensures that they don't study it in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macao.

Of course, when China is reunited, we should have one single standard script. But until then, the common people will remain victim to politics...

[gato]

I know, because not many Taiwanese travel to mainland China and mainlanders don't travel to Taiwan because they can't, there is no point, is there?

Not quite true. About a million Taiwanese live in China. Most went there for business reasons. Many mainlanders would be interested in at leasting visiting Taiwan, but the Taiwanese government, because its pro-independence inclinations, has made it only possible for the special few to go to Taiwan. Allowing mainlanders to visiting Taiwan is one of the things that the pan-blue coalition (KMT and PFP) would like to happen.

Besides, mainlanders think they can't read Taiwanese newspapers, so they don't.

I think they probably would if they are able to. All Taiwanese websites are blocked by the mainland government.

Learning to read traditional characters if you already know the simplified form is actually pretty easy. Just a few hours of going over the characters that are different would be sufficient. Most people don't spent anytime specifically learning the traditional form at all. They learn it on the fly as they're reading, maybe looking up words they don't recognize. Plus, you don't have to recognize every character to understand what you're reading. School kids in the mainland learn some traditional characters in their calligraphy classes, so it's not like that they've never seen the characters before. The reverse process for Taiwanese shouldn't be that hard, either. Just a small amount of effort invested would be enough.

[atitarev]

Thanks for answering.

...All Taiwanese websites are blocked by the mainland government. ...

This calls for a new topic, doesn't it? I want to check with my mainland China penpals, what they think about it. They think they have freedom of expression. For example, we discussed free elections recently.

Can you think of any sites that could be blocked by the mainland government?

[gato]

I believe anything with a .tw in the domain name is blocked. I've been told that people in the mainland can't access any of the Taiwan-based news sites, such as http://ChinaTimes.com, one of Taipei's main dailies.

[atitarev]

Thank you.

[roddy]

Fixed the typo - errors in titles need to be changed in the database, for some technical reason I don't understand.

I don't have time to split this topic up, but can I please ask people to start new threads rather than go off-topic - it means better search engine indexing, greater visibility for your new thread (because it will be in the correct forum and have a relevant title) and ultimately better answers for you.

If you are concerned it won't be seen by the people you want to see it simply drop a note into the original topic or send a pm.

Thanks

Roddy