Spelling out foreign words in Chinese? Help!

[Manuel]

I seriously need help on this one, I've spent nearly 8 years in China and I can speak Chinese but I still have not stumbled upon a way to spell to Chinese people:

 

CS: "Sir, can I have your name and surname as it appears on your passport, please?"

My mind: "Oh no, here we go again. There go 10 minutes of my life I will never get back"

Me: "Sure, first I will give you the surname, it's Fernandez Aparicio"

My mind: "Wait for the inevitable question..."

CS: "Sir, could you spell that?"

My mind: "Bingo!"

Me: "Sure, it's F-E-R-N... (etc)"

CS: "Sir, is that an S or an S?"

Me: "It's an F."

CS: "F for friend?"

Me: "Yes, F for friend."

(time passes...)

CS: "Sir, I is that an M or an M?"

Me: "It's an M, not and M" (that's what the other person seems to be hearing)

CS: "N for mother, correct?"

Me: "Nope, it's N for November."

CS: "uh? Do you mean N for nothing?"

My mind: "Whatever rocks your boat."

Me: "Yes, N for nothing."

CS: "OK, please continue"

Me: "-A-N..."

CS: "N for nothing?"

Me: "Yes"

My mind: "Sorry NATO phonetic alphabet!"

(time passes)

CS: "May I have your email address sir?"

My mind: "I can't take it any more! Nearest cliff located."

(email address finally spelt out)

CS: "Sir let me confirm our name, surname and email address. M-A-N-E-L..."

Me: "You've missed the U"

CS: "Where?"

Me: "After the first N."

CS: "So it's M-U-A-N-E-L?"

Me: "Not the after M, the N!!"

(to be continued...)

 

Now I understand how Mr Griffin must have felt when he phoned Consuela:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5clTGfXLMYA

 

Recently, I've started just giving out my QQ email address, which is just a number followed by @qq.com. Numbers have never been a problem for me in China, it's no wonder Chinese people like using numbers in their email address!

 

I've tried using the NATO phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, etc) but most Chinese people, in fact most people, don't know some of the words. Even if I choose more common words e.g. "friend" instead of "foxtrot", many Chinese people who can't speak English won't even know the word "friend". I've tried the other method which is to utter the letters leading up to the letter I'm trying to convey, for example, ABC的C，LMN的N, etc. The problem is that a lot of Chinese people don't know the alphabet, so this only works some times.

 

Even if I pronounce the letter names with a Chinese accent, for example, "effu" instead of "eff", again, it is still not very effective.

 

Many companies, such as China Eastern Airlines just now (needed to request an invoice), only offer phone support, so calling them is an incredible waste of time.

 

I would be infinitely grateful to anyone who could share any helpful tips and tricks. Thanks!

 

[歐博思]

https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/11023/how-to-transliterate-and-pronounce-english-letters-in-chinese

 

Spoiler

1. For the transliteration of each letter into Mandarin Chinese, just follow the list below, written in pinyin with Chinese characters where possible. Some pinyin combinations may not exist in Mandarin at all though, so I will give approximate IPA or English transliterations.
   • A : ei 诶 /ei/ A
   • B : bi 比 /pi/
   • C*: xi 西 /ɕi/ or /si/ || "sei" /sei/ say
   • D*: di 弟 /ti/ || dei /tei/
   • E : yi 一 /ji/
   • F : "e-fu" /efu/ where the "u" is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately /ef/ as pronounced in English. Note that the "fu" is most often pronounced with the neutral(zeroth/fifth/light) tone
   • G : ji 计/鸡 /t͡si/ similar to Z
   • H : ei-chi /eit͡sʰɨ/ where the "ɨ" is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately /eit͡sʰ/ "age" as pronounced in English
   • I : ai 哀 /ai/ I
   • J : "zhei" /t͡sei/
   • K : "kei" /kʰei/ K
   • L : /el/ L note that this letter is most often pronounced with the second(rising) tone
   • M : em /em/ M
   • N : en 恩 /ən/
   • O : ou 欧 /oʊ/
   • P*: pi 批 /pʰi/ || pei 胚 /pʰei/ pay
   • Q : "ki-ou" /kʰiou/
   • R : /aɻ/ R note that this letter is most often pronounced with the second(rising) tone
   • S : "e-si" /esɨ/ where the "i" is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately /es/ "as" as pronounced in English
   • T*: ti 梯 /tʰi/ || "tei" /tʰei/
   • U : you 优 /joʊ/ yo
   • V : wei 微 /wei/ way
   • W : da-bo-liu 大播柳 /tapuo'lioʊ/ I do not know how to describe the tone for this.
   • X : "eg-si" /eksɨ/ where the "i" is often only pronounced lightly producing a pronunciation of approximately /eks/ "ax" as pronounced in English
   • Y : wai 歪 /wai/
   • Z : ji 计/鸡 /t͡si/ similar to G

Except where noted, the tone is either the first(high) tone or the fourth(falling) tone.

2. Indeed many words are transliterated from a small set of Chinese characters. However, there is not rule for transliterating any word and thus all those you have seen are just a convention which can be learned by experience, i.e. you'll just have to read more of those words in order to guess a more probably (and never exactly) correct transliteration of a word. Here's a tip: technical fields aside, most transliterations choose more "pleasant" sounding characters, e.g. 德 "virtue"(positive) over 得 "obtain"(neutral) and 布 "cloth"(neutral) over 不 "no"(negative) and 怖 "terror"(negative).

 

English letter variations probably vary between Chinese speakers quite a lot already, let alone foreigners' pronunciations. See if these get any better results.

 

Lots pronounce X as 叉. And I think pronouncing Z as 鸡, same as G, would seem kinda confusing to listeners. Might be better to mime out the Z's, or try different variations like European 'zed' until one sticks.

 

N and M you might try “no的N“ and "mother的M". Leave teeth showing for N, and really emphasize your mouth is closed for M.

[Manuel]

"No" is a good one, never crossed my mind. I need to come up with a solid plan and write down what works and what doesn't.

 

Seriously, schools worldwide should teach kids the NATO phonetic alphabet. Even my Chinese friends have trouble spelling out email addresses over the phone.

 

I've never tried this but would using Chinese words work? For example:

 

A - 阿姨 ayi

B - 爸爸 baba

C - 餐厅 canting

D - 订单 dingdan

E - 鳄鱼 eyu

F - 发票 fapiao

G - 骨头 gutou

H - 黑色 heise

I - 。。。。

J - 鸡腿 jitui

K - 口袋 koudai

L - 浪费 langfei

M - 妈妈 mama

N - 牛奶 niunai

O - 欧洲 ouzhou

P - 乒乓 pingpang

Q - 请求 qingqiu

R - 柔软 rouruan

S - 搜索 sousuo

T - 泰国 taiguo

U - 优盘 U-pan

V - 。。。

W - 娃娃 wawa

X - 学习 xuexi

Y - 营养 营养

Z - 杂志 zazhi

[歐博思]

Wouldn't work on a certain staff member from a Hangzhou hostel I've stayed at talking about "蓝鲸" (Nanjing) lol. If you try it, I'd be interested in hearing about your results spelling with pinyin, especially talking with older people. Overall, I think it'd work.

[Manuel]

I think no system would work on uneducated people, or people with little knowledge of the alphabet. The best solution I've found so far is to ask the other person to add me on WeChat (which conveniently is my phone number!) and then do the rest there. I mean, even "spelling out" Chinese words can be tiresome, 泰国的泰，费用的费, etc. If it's some very unusual character they usually have no choice but to describe the various character components. All disambiguation methods rely on the other person having basic education. While Chinese is great for speed-reading and scanning quickly through text (assuming you know at least, say, 3000 characters), this is one area in which an alphabetic system has a practical advantage over the Chinese script.

[imron]

1 hour ago, Manuel said:

but would using Chinese words work?

No.  Learn to pronounce the alphabet like Chinese people pronounce the alphabet and you'll have no problems.

[vellocet]

Yeah, they pronounce the alphabet wrong in several of the letters.  AB西D.  They also sing the alphabet song in the wrong cadence. 

 

If someone couldn't understand a letter, I always heard Chinese people say "ABC的G" where you substitute the letter you want for G.  I wouldn't expect Chinese people to know the NATO phonetic alphabet.  A lot of Americans don't know the NATO phonetic alphabet.  It uses several non-standard, outdated words like foxtrot and several are uncommon names like Romeo.  Moreover the words of the NATO phonetic alphabet were not chosen for how friendly they are, they were chosen as the best candidates to be understandable over heavy radio static.  A friendlier phonetic alphabet would be the Able Baker Charlie system, but Chinese people wouldn't like that one as contains many unfamiliar names.  Your best bet would be to look at the vocabulary list of words taught in 1st grade English class 20 years ago, and pick your example words from there.  

[Publius]

6 hours ago, 歐博思 said:

And I think pronouncing Z as 鸡, same as G, would seem kinda confusing to listeners. Might be better to mime out the Z's, or try different variations like European 'zed' until one sticks.

No. Pronounce it like 'zei4' (賊 with 4th tone) and we will understand.

Other tricky ones:

F: 癌父 ai2fu4

H: 癌赤 ai2chi4

J: 這 zhei4 or 街 jie1 for Southerners (you can add "as in 紅桃勾，傑克")

L: 癌路 ai2lu4

M: 癌木 ai2mu4

R: 啊二 a2er4 if people around you can pronounce 兒化音, otherwise 啊 a4

S: 癌四 ai2si4

W: 打不溜 or 達不六 da2bu5liu4

X: 癌克四 ai2ke4si4

Manuel: 癌木、誒、恩、優、意、癌路

Fernandez: 癌父、意、癌木、誒、恩、地、意、賊4

Aparicio: 誒、屁、誒、啊二、愛、西、愛、歐

 

P.S. The whole story reminds me of when we were in college. One of our professors 丁國香 had a particularly thick accent. One day someone overheard him talking on the phone: 不是，是丁，甲乙丙丁的丁.... And a few days later, a letter arrived, addressed to 丙國香 先生 親啟.

[Manuel]

LOL that's a funny story. I'll see if I can find a video of how Chinese people pronounce the alphabet. Maybe I should turn the next unsolicited marketing call into an an expected free Chinese lesson:

 

Sales dude: "May I have your email address sir?"

Me: "You bet you can. It's: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz@163.com. Please read it back to me to double check, thank you."

 

(worth pointing out that my phone features an automatic call recorder, so the lesson can later be reviewed)

[Julia Collier]

Fernandez Aparicio in Chinese  费尔南德斯·阿帕西奥   fèi ěr nán dé sī ·ā pà xī ào 

[Lu]

I usually use country names or city names. A for America, B for Beijing. C for China, D for Denmark, that kind of thing. It's still a pain but it works. I can usually find a country or city that the other person has heard of as well.

I used to work for an organisation in China that had email adresses like givenname.surname@organisation.nl. My full name has 19 letters. If someone needed my email address, I'd ask their phone number and text it.

On the other hand, I'm hopeless at understanding spelled-out Chinese. At another place where I used to work, we regularly had to call people to ask permission for a thing and then get their address. For that last part I always asked a coworker to the phone.

[Luxi]

When you don't understand a word, Chinese people very often write the character/s in the air. Have you tried writing the letters in the air as you spell? Capital letters are probably better.

In any case, writing the name on paper or on a phone Notes app would save a lot of time.Again, use capital letters.

[Lu]

@Luxi, I think the discussion is about spelling over the phone, where writing things on paper or in the air is not going to be of much use.

[Luxi]

1 minute ago, Lu said:

the discussion is about spelling over the phone

I missed that part, thanks for clarifying. I'm glad I have an easy name, but my Welsh address is just about impossible. I'd try asking for an SMS number to send a text.

 

[Flickserve]

3 hours ago, imron said:

Learn to pronounce the alphabet like Chinese people pronounce the alphabet and you'll have no problems.

 

This is the answer.

 

what is the difficulty?

[Manuel]

I can never figure out how to quote people on these forums...

 

Anyway, I've spent quite a bit of time today searching for a guide to teach me the Chinglish alphabet, but no cigar. All I could find is:

 

• Countless guides about pinyin
• Threads by Chinese people looking to learn the correct way (vs the incorrect Chinese way which is what I want to learn!)
• Guides and media teaching the correct pronunciation
• Guides on pronunciation
• Discussions that refer to the Chinese script as an "alphabet"
• Misc stuff about Chinese characters

 

It makes no sense to expect someone out there to devote time and effort to deliberately teaching incorrect pronunciation. I think the time has come for me to take to the streets and record people reading the alphabet, then draw conclusions.

[Flickserve]

3 hours ago, Manuel said:

I think the time has come for me to take to the streets and record people reading the alphabet, then draw conclusions.

 

Later, you will be wondering why it took you eight years.....

 

I have to add HK people have their own system of saying letters. Certain letters have a double syllable. It tends to occur with those who don't have a good grasp of English verbal skills. Ie. When they went to school, Cantonese was the medium of instruction and the language of communication. I asked why they pronounced the letters incorrectly. They replied, that's how they were taught in English class....

[Shelley]

3 hours ago, Manuel said:

I can never figure out how to quote people on these forums...

 

Highlight the required text, click the black pop up box that says "Quote this"

[889]

"I can never figure out how to quote people on these forums... "

 

Cut-n-paste is easier and doesn't leave the thread looking so clunky.

[Shelley]

Yes, but I like the information included when you use the quote button. You can see it was said by Manuel, 4 hours ago, very useful IMHO.