Help talk:IPA/Mandarin

Conflicting information between 中文 and English version of this article.
For instance, the Chinese IPA page gives ɤ̞͗w for pinyin "ou" or zhuyin ㄡ which sounds more accurate than oʊ to me, but I'm not a linguistics expert. It certainly doesn't sound like it ends in ʊ based on recordings.

Metzkorn (talk) 06:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree m8. I think that fits much better. ReelmsyWiki (talk) 12:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * for some reason [oʊ] has become a very popular transcription of the english "oh" sound (which is total nonsense), and the pinyin "ou" sound is quite similar, which is likely where the transcription came from. [ɤ̞͗w] is definitely more accurate. Ametalbaby (talk) 00:01, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

IPA of Tone 3 and 4 swapped?
In the vowel table, the IPA of tones 3 and 4 does not seem to agree with the pinyin etc. - might be a typo, but I don't speak Mandarin and so won't correct it without consulting with someone 89.144.205.16 (talk) 10:48, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinyin and IPA are not the same thing. See the note at the bottom of the table. Nardog (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

zi, ci, si
The pronounciation of "i" in "zi, ci, si" is shown as being "ɹ̩" but shouldn't it be "ɯ"? Eduardoadl (talk) 18:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's kind of hard to transcribe these narrowly. Personally, I prefer the analysis of -i in zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si as underlying /i/ (which makes sense from historical Chinese phonology), but the one used here conventionally also has a point. Double sharp (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I disagree with /ɯ/, as a native I agree with the transliteration as /ɹ̩/, it has always seemed to be close to the approximant R. I compare /ɯ/ with the u in Japanese. ReelmsyWiki (talk) 12:41, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Disagreement with x in pinyin being transliterated into "ɕ"
I am a native mandarin speaker, and I completely disagree with the transliteration of x into /ɕ/. I believe that the Voiceless Palatal Fricative /ç/ makes more sense, and matches the pronunciation better that the former. Take the word 叫 (call), which currently approximates to /tɕʎɐ:ɵ/. But in my opinion, a /tç/ or /dç/ at the start fits better with how we say it, without the affricate band.. Same with the word 旗 (flag). That would perhaps be a /tʰçi/ (excluding tones) or a /tç/ with an affricate band. I'm not a linguist with 6 Harvard PhD's, just piping in as a native. ReelmsyWiki (talk) 12:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

open-o sound ɔ
The open-o is missing from this list, as well as from the article "Standard Chinese phonology" but appears in transcriptions of the diphthong (?) "uo" in the entry for 捉 on wiktionary, for example: /ʈ͡ʂu̯ɔ⁵⁵/ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%8D%89). Should we add the diphthong /u̯ɔ/ to this help page, or to the chinese phonology article? In what context does it appear? Recognitor (talk) 21:01, 26 December 2023 (UTC)