I need urgent help with three phonemes please

[nawyecky]

Hello,

I don't speak Chinese at all, and for a graphic presentation I need to know the most logical way to write these three phonemes (in Mandarin) in a row:

1. JAN

(J sounds like the S in English "LEISURE" or the first G in French "GEOGRAPHIE")

For French speakers, the phoneme is much like the pronunciation of the first word in "Jeanne d'Arc".

2. JIN

Same as above only with a long "I" like in English "Jeep".

3. YOO

Exactly like the English word "You".

Could anyone please point me to a web page where I can find this information, or even post three jpegs with the correct calligraphy?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[in_lab]

I don't think there are any "most logical" characters, but here are some choices.

zhan4

戰

war

jin1

金

gold

yu4

玉

jade

Or try zhan, jin, and yu and www.zhongwen.com

[Ferno]

I do not think that first "J" sound exists in Mandarin... it doesn't have a buzzing, voiced J/Z sound like that

oh and the "zh" sound is like a J but with your tounge rolled up near/touching the roof of your mouth, not touching the back of your teeth. (for your reference)

[HashiriKata]

1. JAN

(J sounds like the S in English "LEISURE" or the first G in French "GEOGRAPHIE")

I think the Chinese "ran" should be the closest, so just take your pick :

然，染，燃.

[wai ming]

Just my personal opinion but I don't think "yu" as in 玉 sounds like the English "you". Maybe "you" (for example 友 yǒu) might be a bit closer...?

I agree with Ferno, I don't think the first "J" sound exists in Mandarin either.

[nawyecky]

Thanks to everyone for your help. Because I wasn't sure those sounds existed in Mandarin, when I wrote "most logical" I meant the way a native speaker would probably try to write them.

This is certainly confusing to me. Does this mean that when you pronounce your (European) name in front of different people in China they will write it down differently?

in_lab:

If there is no "J" sound, how come there is zhan4 (war) AND jin1 (gold)? The consonant sound I'm looking for is exactly the same in both JAN and JIN. Does this mean Mandarin accepts a "J" sound in front of an "I" and not in front of an "A"?

Ferno

Do you mean the "J" sounds approximately like English "DZ"?

HashiriKata

Do you mean the Chinese "R" is pronounced like a "J"? If so, should I write RAN RIN YOU instead?

Thanks to all of you, I appreciate this very much.

[HashiriKata]

HashiriKata

Do you mean the Chinese "R" is pronounced like a "J"? If so, should I write RAN RIN YOU instead?

No! Based on your first post, the "J's" in your JAN and JIN are different, they therefore require different sounds in Chinese (I think RAN and JIN in Chinese should be the closest to yours).

However, in your last post, you said "The consonant sound I'm looking for is exactly the same in both JAN and JIN." This appears to contradict your explanation in your first post and may invite confusing advice, so you'd better first sort out the precise nature of your "J's".

Cheers,

[gougou]

No! Based on your first post, the "J's" in your JAN and JIN are different, they therefore require different sounds in Chinese (I think RAN and JIN in Chinese should be the closest to yours).

From the first post, I understand that only the vowel is different, not the consonant.

Nevertheless, there is no RIN in the Chinese language, so you might as well stick with JIN.

[HashiriKata]

Agree with Gougou! Here's the post I typed out before seeing gougou's post:

nawyecky,

I'm sorry, I was confused about what you meant by "JIN" in your first post . I thought you meant "J" as in Jeep (in_lab may have thought the same way and therefore gave you jin1 (金)) .

Back to the question: There's the syllable "ran" in Chinese but there isn't a "rin" (there are gaps in the syllable chart!). However, if you take the Chinese "jin", the "j" here is not the same "j" as in "Jeanne d'Arc".

[nawyecky]

Now I'm totally confused...

The consonant J is indeed the same in both phonemes, like the S in LEISURE, the G in GENRE, the Z in AZURE, the S in ASIA.

The JAN and JIN phonemes are exactly the same, except for the vowel in the middle:

The A in JAN is short, like the A in ANSWER pronounced with a London accent, although New York should be fine too. Anything except Texas or Tennessee (no offense)...

The I in JIN is exactly like the EE in JEEP, SHEEP, BLEEP, you get the idea...

The YOU phoneme is exactly like the English word YOU.

So which symbols should I use?

P.S. I stumbled upon a Chinese book that said that the corresponding symbols for the French name "Jeanne" are RANG-NA, which is a bit of a bother for me, especially since I don't know how the R sounds like. I just need JAN, if it exists as one symbol.

Thanks.

[gougou]

Pick from HashiriKata's post, #4. They should be pronounced pretty much the same way as your JAN (disregarding Chinese tones).

There is no such sound in front of an EE-sound, so I think the closest you can get is jin, maybe a native speaker (of English) can describe you the pronounciation.

As for the last one, Chinese 'you' probably would be closest. This is pronounced more or less like 'yo' in English. (There is no YOU-sound, as u behind y is pronounced ü, like 'u' in French)

[nawyecky]

Sorry gougou if I don't get it, but the post you're referring to only has the symbols for RAN (3 of them...)

[JoH]

Basically, first you have to decide what your phonemes equate to in chinese pronounciation. All chinese characters can be written phonetically using pinyin. Once you have decided on the correct pinyin, you can just chose the character you like the meaning of from the list of characters with that pronounciation.

The problem is that chinese does not have exactly the phonemes that you are looking for...

For JAN you could have zhan (zh is like english j - you are right about the rules, zh goes with some vowel sounds and j with others, so you will not see 'jan' or 'zhin' in pinyin) or shan, which is (more or less) like the english sh sound - I don't think ran is a good choice here. Think of the sounds at the start of the English words shin and gin - which one of these represents your J sound best?

For JIN you will not get an exact match, as there is no ending like the english 'een' ... The pinyin jin would be the best match here if you chose zhan above, or if you go with shan above you should chose xin (sounds like the English word shin) here. (Again x and sh are - pretty much - the same sound, but x goes with certain vowels and sh with others).

So you should have zhan and jin, or shan and xin, I think.

For the last one YOU, you definitely need yu rather than you. Pinyin you sounds more like Yo!. Pinyin you is not exactly right either, it is more like yü, but it is the best match.

Once you have decided on the pinyin, you can get a list of all characters with that pronounciation and chose the one you like the meaning of. For example, zhan could mean war, stand, tremble, profound, cut, felt (the material), or glue (and there are others too, according to my dictionary) depending on the character you pick. There's the issue of tones to take into account too, but that might not matter depending on your purposes.

Hope I haven't just confused you more

Jo

Just thought... why don't you attach a sound file?

[nawyecky]

Not only you haven't confused me more, you've actually made things a bit clearer...

I think that the SH sound (as in English SHEEP) would be best for both JAN and JIN. As for the YOU, I agreed that YU is better that YO!

So, to sum up, if I go to http://www.zhongwen.com/, do SEARCH and select the box INPUT PINYIN, what should I write in English characters for those three phonemes? XIN? XAN? SHIN? YU? And should I select vowels with descending, ascending, flat or "zigzag" accent? And last but not least (this is a graphic work after all), is there a similar site which shows high-resolution calligraphy instead of the little fonts that site uses?

Thanks a lot again.

[Ferno]

Do you mean the "J" sounds approximately like English "DZ"?

in the pinyin pronounciation scheme, the "j" is like the english "j" in jam.

zh is a seperate sound which is similar to J. It does not exist in English and I don't know what you mean by "dz". It sounds nothing like a "z" or anything so it is confusing for people who don't know pinyin - but basically it's pronounced like a "j" but with your tounge rolled back more and nearer/touching the roof of your mouth. Try saying "jam" normally over and over while rolling your toungue back more and more, notice the sound difference.

luckily, the initials "j" and "zh" almost never have the same final sound, except for a couple of exceptions (zhuan/juan and zhu/ju... that's all, right guys?) there's no "jong" there is only "zhong", there's no "zhie" there is only "jie", so there isn't much confusion - southern Chinese don't really care and pronounce both sounds the same anyway.

[gougou]

zhuan/juan and zhu/ju... that's all, right guys?

Those are just the same letters, not the same sounds. But that's OT, anyway.

[JoH]

If you are going with the english sh sound for your J, then you should look up...

shan

xin

yu

Let us know which characters you choose!

Jo

[nawyecky]

Hi all,

I've finally got it. The forum interface wouldn't let me upload the jpeg so you can see it at http://www.talino.org/web.jpg

I know it's not supposed to be written vertically but for graphic design reasons I decided to align the symbols that way.

I found the SHAN-XIN-YU pronunciation very pretty so I stuck to it.

What I understand from the symbols I've chosen:

SHAN: A tree with hair, such as a fir.

XIN: Joy.

YU: A common surname, symbolized by a combination of a house AND the idea of separation.

Now isn't that a lovely definition of love

Thanks a lot to ALL of you for your help on a subject I knew nothing about. I appreciate it very very much. All the best.

[Ferno]

Those are just the same letters, not the same sounds. But that's OT, anyway

oh yes you are right... i completely forgot about the difference. The "u" in "ju" is pronounced with the lips pushed out more (kind of approaching the uu sound in 女) and the "uan" in "zhuan" in pronounced with a much clear "a" sound - in "juan" the a sound is very low-key/more like an 'e'

[Altair]

Hi Nawyecky,

If you speak no Chinese, please be aware that there are many aspects of Chinese that are quite tricky, especially in cases like this when things are not discussed in context. Are you quite sure you have found what you need?

If you are going to be communicating something specific through your choice of "graphs," I can't help wondering whether you might be missing some critical facts that you would need to present your material correctly and without the potential for embarrassment.

It might make sense for you to give a little more information about what your purpose is as a check on your understanding. As I look at your results, I can imagine many potential pitfalls, unless you simply want to present three random characters and have a vague idea about how to pronounce them to an English speaking audience.

Here are some examples of where you may encounter problems and where you should probably get additional information before proceeding:

1. presenting to a Chinese speaking audience

2. representing words or sounds you have heard spoken

3. giving specific meanings for the characters

4. explaining the etymology of the graphs

5. describing Chinese phonemes or writing conventions.

6. presenting to linguists

Here is an example of how things can be tricky. Saying that "xin" means "joy" (or perhaps "joyful") would be a common shorthand way of giving the meaning of the character you chose; however, "xin" can mean many other things as well, if written with other characters. Also, if you asked someone how to say "joy" or "joyful" in Chinese, they would never just say "xin," because this sound cannot be used by itself in this meaning.