Talk:Pinyin/Archive 4

R
In the table pronunciation of initial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Rules_given_in_terms_of_English_pronunciation)

The symbol ~ in the IPA pronunciation is not defined and it is unclear, at least to me, which sound should be [ɻ~ʐ]. May someone clarify it? I will report the line below:

r	[ɻ~ʐ]	ray	Similar to the English r in reduce, but with a flat tongue, lightly fricated and unrounded lips. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ILikeLanguages (talk • contribs) 12:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The pronunciation varies: see Help:IPA/Mandarin which has a little more detail. and Mandarin Chinese.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 20:57, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

tsu or zi?
in wikipedia you find "Sun Tzu (/ˌsuːnˈdzuː/; also rendered as Sun Zi"; these different forms of writing the word for "master" are found in many places. Now according to pinyin, if I understood well, "u" and "i" are two completely different sounds. Are they both correct or just one? Can you please explain (may be also in the article)! Thanx! --HilmarHansWerner (talk) 19:49, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Only Sunzi is correct Hanyu Pinyin. Sun Tzu is Wade–Giles romanization. (Wade–Giles for Pinyin zu is tsu. See also the comparative table at http://www.pinyin.info/romanization/compare/hanyu.html.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:03, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The table appears in this article too. See the section Comparison with other orthographies, the Sibilant constants table, the entry for 'tsɨ' As for an explanation, that sound does not occur in English, so there is no exact/correct way to Romanise it, and Romanisation systems were based not just on English and resemble other European languages more in some cases.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 20:44, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Using only the table in this article it is almost impossible to understand that Pinyin zu corresponds to Wade–Giles tsu. (The latter is mentioned in the discussion title.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 21:25, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

mark which vowel carries the tone
Could sb. please mark which all the vowels carrying the tone (if possible, also in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table) Thanks--Backinstadiums (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Need a Section about the Alphabet of Pinyin
I think we need a section about the alphabet of Pinyin. Yes, it looks the same as the alphabet of English, but it has its own pronunciations. Most of the modern Chinese dictionaries that use Pinyin are arranged alphabetically according to the Pinyin of Chinese characters. So memory of the Pinyin alphabet enables one to find a given entry in the dictionary directly, just as one finds a given English word in an English dictionary. This is perhaps the most important use of the Pinyin Alphabet. --Roland (talk) 10:55, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

e-circumflex
> "Eh alone is written as ê; elsewhere as e. Schwa is always written as e."

What tone is ê? Or is someone supposed to add tonal diacritics on top of it? --Saledomo (talk) 03:41, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * ê is the ending sound of ie or ue in either case the circumflex is dropped. And ê alone is only used in the names of the Pinyin Alphabet (in which case tones are not needed), but never as a lone final in pronunciations of Chinese characters. So there is never the need to add a tonal diacritic above the circumflex. --Roland (talk) 11:07, 30 January 2018 (UTC)


 * This is simply not true. The letter $⟨ê⟩$ occurs in the authoritative 现代汉语词典 with all of the four tone marks above it: ê̄, ế, ê̌, and ề are the primary pronunciations of 欸/誒 when used as interjections, though alternative pronunciations as ēi, éi, ěi, and èi are also indicated. (And the character 欸 also has two further pronunciations: it is āi as a variant of 唉 āi, and ǎi in 欸乃 ǎinǎi.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Pronounciation
Need audio file on proper English and proper Chinese pronounciation. Bcwilmot (talk) 03:21, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Wiedenhof's "A Grammar of Mandarin"
According to Wiedenhof's A Grammar of Mandarin, page 43,

The final spelled as -o is only combined with the initials b-, p-, m-, f-. This vowel matches the vowel part of the final -uo [wɔ].

However in page 45, the author states

The fnal -uo [wɔ] is spelled as -o before the labial initials, b-, p-, m-, f-.

According to page 44,

"Weng" syllables rhyme with the fnal -ong [ʊŋ]

However, he'd specified weng as [wʌŋ], to finally add

Weng displays the same type of variation as the fnal -un: it may lose its rounding toward the end, [wəŋ].Page 66 reads

Page 66 reads

there's free variation between [wʌŋ] and [ʊŋ] for both fnals, with complementary distribution.

Can somebody clarify these contradictions? --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:04, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Middle dot
The "middle dot" being used to indicate the neutral tone requires a citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4C4E:2480:D100:B9FB:7A1A:80EC:2655 (talk) 19:10, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ... which is provided in footnote 35: "Section 7.3 of the current standard GB/T 16159-2012." Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:35, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Any chance of getting an article that wasn't written by the CCP?
I jest, but only slightly. It's pretty clear that the article was written by someone or someones with a very biased perception of this system. Examples include the constant use of unsourced fluff and the complete lack of any actual criticism of the system that isn't immediately (and poorly) hand-waived away. It's written like propaganda rather than as a useful educational tool. 68.60.202.174 (talk) 04:43, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

i pronounced as r??
The following in the overview section is unclear: "(When Chinese speakers call out these letters, they read them as: ji, qi, xi, zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, and ri. The i in the last four sounds more like r and the use of i is purely a matter of convention.)" Does this mean that e.g. ri is pronounced "rr"? How does one pronounce that? And what does this have to do with the proceeding sentence stating that English speakers cannot produce the sounds represented by these letters??140.180.254.183 (talk) 15:36, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have removed it, as it was not really relevant to this article. It was not necessarily wrong, but there is more to it than that. You could look at e.g. Syllabic consonant for a fuller discussion of that particular sound. How Chinese is pronounced is covered in that and other articles, it does not need repeating in this article, which is on the Romanisation system.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 16:29, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I will give my opinion: you are right, if that were read by a beginner in Mandarin Chinese, it could be confusing. So I am going to rewrite it as I understand it, and add more details. "When Chinese speakers pronounce these syllables, they do this as ji, qi, xi, zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi, and ri. There are two explanations for the last four syllables. First: the i in them is more like an r(this r is pronounced as ɚ). Second: they are syllabic consonants. The use of i is purely a matter of convention."
 * So that is it. I hope it is clearer, both explanations are valid. FanNihongo (talk) 03:49, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

s not as in English?
§ Overview says
 * Native speakers of English will decode pinyin spellings to fairly close approximations of Mandarin except in the case of certain speech sounds that are not ordinarily produced by most native speakers of English: ... s ... exhibiting the greatest discrepancies.

Not according to the table in § Pronunciation of initials:

--Thnidu (talk) 03:28, 2 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's a bunch of BS..whoever wrote it either a, doesn't know very much about native English speech, b, has never HEARD your average native English speaker try to pronounce Chinese words written in pinyin (e.g., we would be inclined to pronounce Q as K, X as ks or z, &c), or both Firejuggler86 (talk) 09:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * For what its worth, though, I think that table is likely completely wrong...I think s in pinyin is NOT accurately represented by the s as in say Firejuggler86 (talk) 09:41, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Pinyin table missing many finals
The main image for the article, File:Table_of_Hanyu_Pinyin_Syllables.png, lists only 24 finals, and is lacking many finals such as "uo". GreekApple123 (talk) 02:59, 14 February 2022 (UTC)