Hello everybody
I know that what I want to ask is probably very amateurish and probably covered someplace in this forum (though I can not find out where) but if anybody can help me here I will greatly appreciate it. now I understand that there are two systems of putting chinese into english alphabet. the pinyin system and the wade-giles system. my problem here is with pronouncing the letters X, Zh, J, Q, Ch and Sh (especially the first four) which seem to be pronounced differently in the two systems. also I do not understand the reason for having two systems because if Qin is pronounced Ch'in, then why isn't it written as such?

My recommendation (if you're learning chinese) is that you learn the pinyin first (instead of wade giles).

Wade Giles was an old romanization method that is no longer used in China. It's used only in the West by older scholars. The current standard romanization of chinese in China is pinyin.

For a table of comparing Wade Giles to Pinyin, refer to
http://oclccjk.lib.uci.edu/wgtopy.htm

Very nice table, thank you. I am not learning chinese though I would love to (there are no teachers in my country) butwas having problems with pronouncing names. for example I didn't now weather Xia was pronounced Zia, Chia, Zhia or what. now it seems that it is pronounced Hsia. Now another question is, is it really pronounced Hsia? I mean does the Pinyin system show the actual pronunciation or is there a catch to it?

Pinyin is just a guide to pronounciation, a decent one that is. It is not perfect as there are inconsistencies here and there. For example, 靈魂 is technically pronounced ling2hun2 when to my ears it's ling2huen2. I'm not an expert but that's something off my mind. It's best to listen to enough words and compare it to the pinyin to capture the sound/pronounciation its representing. But pinyin is not enough as you have to capture the tones too. The best way to capture it is to listen again and again until you hear the 'rhythm' of the language.

If you're having problem with pronunciation, I suggest you to go to Nciku dictionary at
http://www.nciku.com/

You can input the pinyin or chinese character and then try to listen to how it's pronounced. Yes..they do have sound files and I believe the best way to learn is by listening.

To listen to how "Xia" (Hsia) is pronounced, go to http://www.nciku.com/search/all/pinyin/xia . Of course, you should be looking for the character 夏, which is referring to Xia dynasty.

Actually, if you are an english speaker and know nothing of chinese pronounciation, Wade Giles does a better job than pinyin at approximating the actual pronounciation of words (another interesting, better imo, approach is the Yale system). Similarly a french speaker without any knowledge of chinese would pronounce it better by reading words transcribed in the EFEO romanisation (which is "tailored" to french). This is because both Wade and EFEO were designed to this effect.

Pinyin, on the other hand, was meant as a translitteration for the chinese people, and doesn't cater to the pronounciation problems of english speakers. As such, it doesn't really do a great job in helping foreigners speak, and trying to pronounce chinese as pinyin reads is a bit like trying to read english and assuming it pronounces like french, or spanish. Pinyin does, of course, serve other purposes, such as providing a global standard... (whether this is good or bad depends on one's personal opinions on the virtues of globalisation, standards and norms...)

As a result, even, now, many translations of litterary works still use Wade or EFEO as their preferred transcription schemes. Personally, I think if you are planning to learn chinese, you should better learn several romanisation systems. It is no big deal, and it is always embarassing not to recognise the name of a famous person or character, just because it is romanised differently...

Francois

I agree with fcharton that wade and yale are better system devised from the west.

Pinyin was devised in china but Pinyin is inconsistent and ignore the definition of consonant and vowels which is confusing to first time learners.

Pinyin is a ill conceived system which I have commented in the past.

Thank you all. nciku was incredibly helpful, however I have found several rules (mostly from wikipedia) with troubling letters and I would like to see if I'm coreect:
Pinyin English
--------- ---------
h kh (such as ch in the Scottish loch)
x sh
zh like g in merger
r zh (like z in azure)
z c
c ts
q ch
----------------------------------
The part about h and r came as a surprise though (I am trying to think of the Han dynasty as the Khan dynasty and am not yet used to it, also it is rather strange reading a name like Xirou as Shizhou, so I have some reservations about weather or not this system is correct, please give your comments. Thanks.

Hi mehranjangh,

The Wikipedia page on "pinyin" gives a systematic overview of all the sounds of pinyin, including a table explaining how to pronounce the initial consonants you are having difficulty with. You will find the page even more helpful if you know the International Phonetic Alphabet. A short excerpt:



The consonants (technically: the "initials") of pinyin are easier to learn if you classify them into the following small groups instead of learning them in random order:
- b, p ("p" is more explosive than "b")
- m
- f
- d, t ("t" is more explosive than "d")
- n, l
- g, k, h ("k" is more explosive than "g")
- j (between dzee and djee), q (between tsee and tchee), x (between see and shee) ("j" is more explosive than "q"; these letters are used only when followed by the sounds "i" [ee] and "ü"; in such cases, "ü" is written "u," but still pronounced "ü")
- zh (dj), ch (tsh), sh, r (zh = ژ [že] in Farsi; ch = چ [če]; "ch" is more explosive than "zh"; used when followed by other sounds than "i" [ee] and "ü"; when followed by the final "i" [as in zhi, chi, shi], the "i" is not pronounced)
- z (dz), c (ts), s ("c" is more explosive than "z")

The following site also contains a few resources that might help you master pinyin:

http://pinyinpractice.com/wangzhi

If you want to compare the various Romanization systems that are used to transliterate modern Mandarin, you should follow the links on this useful web page:

http://www.pinyin.info/romanization/index.html

No Romanization system is perfect. Pinyin may not be close to English pronunciation, but it is relatively consistent and easy to learn. Good luck with your studies!

Cheers,
Madalibi

I don't think Francois was arguing that Wade-Giles and Yale are better systems per se. Rather, he was asserting that those systems are better for English speakers because those systems approximate the pronunciation of Chinese words better for English speakers.

He also explained that pinyin was primarily devised for use by Chinese people and it seems to do a pretty good job. Since the Chinese do not use an alphabetic system, they are not 'influenced' by what they 'believe' is the right pronunciation for a letter/word written in pinyin. To explain further, consider this:

As an English speaker, upon seeing the letter 'q', one would immediately relate that to the pronunciation of words such as quiet, quick, etc. However, when an English speaker sees the pinyin Qin or Qing, they are predisposed to pronounce those words as "Quin or Quing" (as a force of habit) and it is doubly difficult to make them recognize that the letter 'Q' in pinyin should actually be pronounced like 'ch' (which is how the WG or Yale romanizes it)

And the reverse is true. Chinese speakers who grew up w/ pinyin and who subsequently learn English (especially American English) find it difficult to adjust. When they see the vowels 'i' in an English word, they tend to pronounce it like they did according to pinyin rules ('eee') so an English word like 'kid' becomes 'keeed' for a Chinese speaker.



I know you've voiced concern w/ pinyin before on this forum... but I don't think you commented on how pinyin ignores the definitions of consonants and vowels. Also, hundreds of millions of Chinese children learning pinyin for the first time seem to have no problem with the system, so it can't be that confusing.

While it is important, as mentioned above, to have some understanding of how all the popular romanization systems work, I think pinyin is by far the one that should be focused on. Just make sure that you understand how to pronounce pinyin properly (i.e. don't read the words as you would in English).

Almost all current textbooks use the pinyin+tone marker system for introducing new vocabulary, while Wade-Giles is being used less and less frequently. If you ever plan to study Chinese with a native speaker or in China, you will need to know pinyin.

Wade-Giles is also being replaced by pinyin in scholarly journals/essays/etc. and I have noticed that recent editions of several older studies on China have been updated to use pinyin instead of Wade-Giles.

Another reason that pinyin is important is that if you someday want to type Chinese on a computer (i.e. practicing Chinese with MSN buddies, Google, etc.) the most accessible keyboard input systems for Chinese characters are pinyin-based (i.e. you type the pinyin and then choose the intended Chinese character from a list).

In short, while there are some minor flaws with the pinyin system (and the fact is I don't think these minor problems will have any bearing on the early stages of your Chinese study) it is the most useful and popular of the romanization systems and will become even more so in the future.

Anyway, as a student of the Chinese language, thats my 2 cents.

I am actually having trouble with this as well.
Right now my Chinese class is being taught in pinyin, however I am more used to phonetics.

I plan to consult the teacher next week. I'll ask him these questions for you!

To those who say Wade-Giles is easier for English speakers, I have one word for you: Peking.

Contrast that with the pinyin version: Beijing.

Use a 'p' to represent a 'b' sound, a 'k' for a 'j' sound, a 'j' for an 'r' sound...what sense does that make to a native English speaker? I'm sure there is some linguistic sense to be made of this, but as for straightforward pronunciation, I'll take hanyu pinyin any day. Pinyin is not completely phonetic, but it's the closest yet. I'm probably one of the few who is happy that Taiwan is making the switch to hanyu pinyin (though the blitzkrieg way they're going about the transition is pretty stupid, but that's another discussion). When I was in Taiwan two years ago I'd see the same place name written on signs within the same city spelled three different ways.

But if you're studying history, a knowledge of Wade-Giles is necessary, since most of the older books are written with that system.

GZ, that is a great dictionary site. I have bookmarked it. Many thanks!

I've been learning Chinese for several weeks now and I find it difficult to pronounce too. My biggest problem is that I have such a deep voice that its hard to get the proper inflection. Even when I'm sure that I pronounced it correctly (because I know the range of my own voice) the teacher corrects me. Students with higher-pitched voices will pronounce it the same way as me, but they don't get corrected. Even my high tones sound low. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to talk like someone sucking Helium in order for people to understand my Chinese.

Peking is certainly not Wade Giles (it would be Peiching) but a much older transcription, which dates from the early 19th century at least. I have the impression that Peking actually was imported into english from the french Pékin, which is a better approximation, but this would need to be confirmed.

The use of the "k" in this transcription might have something to do with ancient pronounciation of the word too. The sound transcribed as "j" in modern putonghua used to correspond to two different sounds (it is still the case in a number of dialects, both northern and southern): something similar to "j" in modern pinyin, and a very light "k". A similar situation occured with a number of other letters, notably "x" and "q". Old style EFEO, for instance, has two different transcription for the modern phoneme rendered as "xiu" in pinyin (hiu and siu, if memory serves).

Francois

Well, that shows what I know about Wade-Giles. Thanks for clearing that up.

So If one sticks with wade-giles he can approximate Chinese pronunciation to an acceptable degree, right?

For an english speaker, yes. The pronounciation won't be perfect, but it won't be too wrong either.

Francois

Peking and other place names like Tientsin (Tianjin 天津), Quemoy (Jinmen 金門), Szechwan (Sichuan 四川), Amoy (Xiamen 廈門), etc., are remnants of the "Chinese Postal Map Romanization" system, which was used conventionally in the 19th-century international postal system. It is similar to Wade-Giles in many ways, but there are also obvious differences that are explained in the Wiki page linked above.

But the Romanization "Peking" is older than the international postal system. "Peking" was how French missionaries transliterated 北京 [now pronounced Beijing / Pei-ching] in the 17th century, when the initial that is now pronounced "j" (in pinyin) was still pronounced "k."

The Wikipedia page on Beijing provides the following explanation:


Note 15 refers to W. South Coblin's "A Brief History of Mandarin." Journal of the American Oriental Society 120.4 (2000): 537-52.

Some of our most knowledgeable members have just discussed the relative merits of pinyin, Wade-Giles, and other Romanization systems in this thread:

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=27791

Cheers,
Madalibi