Talk:Pinyin/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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^words_deeds 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^words_deeds 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)

@Roland Longbow: 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#Mandarin and syllabic fricative 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^words_deeds 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 [s] ... exhibiting the greatest discrepancies.

Not according to the table in § Pronunciation of initials:

Pinyin	IPA	English approximation	Explanation
s	[s]	say	as in sun

--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)

Wiki Education assignment: Writing Workshop

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 September 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): HaEvNa, Aikeeee, Wwwe123321 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Wwwe123321 (talk) 21:01, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Applications of Pinyin

The inclusion of this piece of information can help readers, especially foreigners who don't know pinyin, to have a more comprehensive understanding of the "new concept" of pinyin, and I think this piece of information can be added to the introduction, which will make the Wikipedia article even more helpful.

Pinyin, a vital component of Chinese language education, facilitates language acquisition, particularly for non-native speakers. Widely employed in educational institutions from elementary to university levels, Pinyin serves as a foundational tool for teaching pronunciation and aiding learners in understanding Mandarin phonetics. (Jian, 2017, 553-567)

Pinyin's role extends beyond national borders, emerging as an invaluable asset in the global context of Chinese language education. It has evolved into a universally recognized method for teaching Chinese pronunciation, offering learners a consistent and systematic approach to mastering the nuances of Mandarin tones and sounds. With the burgeoning interest in learning Chinese worldwide, the pragmatic application of Pinyin has gained prominence, particularly in the realm of online language courses and educational materials in recent years. (Jian, 2017, 553-567) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aikeee (talk • contribs) 20:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Tones

I'm trying to make the tones in pinyin more clear by mentioning the neutral tone in pinyin. Also, I provide a brief interpretation of how to pronounce the tones.

The pinyin system also uses diacritics to mark the four tones of Mandarin (or it could be five tones when considering the neutral tone).  In the pinyinn system, four main tones of Mandarin are shown by diacritics: ā (tone 1: high-level), á (tone 2: rising), ǎ (tone 3: low-falling-rising), and the last one à (tone 4: high-falling).  And there is no symbol or diacritic for the neutral tone. The diacritic is placed over the letter that represents the syllable nucleus, unless that letter is missing (see below). Tones are used in Hanyu Pinyin symbols, and they don't appear in Chinese characters.

Tones are written on the finals of Chinese pinyin. If the tone mark is written over an i, the tittle above the i is omitted, as in yī.

I have the citation for the part I revised, but it wasn't shown here. One citation is used for the addition of the neutral tone, while the other one is the way of pronouncing tones. If there is any grammar mistake, please point it out, and I'll do my best to revise it. HaEvNa (talk) 03:01, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a bit over-written for what it is, if that makes sense. It requires a bit of attention regarding style of the prose. For example, I think it's odd to say the tittle of the i is omitted per se, I would simply say it has been replaced by the macron.

There's a bad habit we have of clustering information together in brackets on articles like these, but it often ends up more confusing for readers than we realize as people familiar with the subject. If you find yourself constantly repeating the same lists of the same types of information, maybe it's best to make it a table and then allow the reader to refer to it as needed. Remsense留 03:21, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the response, and sorry for the late reply. I looked through both the original article and my revision again and figured out that it's true that my revision could be a little bit wordy. My consideration is that for someone who's in a hurry to look through the article, they would probably just see the first paragraph of each section. And that's why I want to show them the most important things in tones of pinyin. And if they have time to view it in detail, they can see the chart below (I think I would add "see below").

For the section about the tone mark, it's actually from the original article. I think I'll do my best to make it clear. HaEvNa (talk) 20:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Your reply was perfectly prompt, don't worry about that. I also want to improve this article—it's very high-traffic, and should probably have my attention more than my other projects frankly. Remsense留 21:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Restructuring

The article's layout presently makes very little sense, which is particularly bad for what is one of the most highly important, and one of the highest trafficked articles that we have concerning the Chinese language. its sections are:

1. History — fine.
2. Initials and finals — describes the important core of Chinese morphology and the internal linguistic model, fine, but tries to do so and properly introduce the topic of the article at the same time?
3. Tones — Maybe shouldn't be its own top-level section.
4. Orthographic rules — Oh dear, huh? Pinyin as a whole is a collection of orthographic rules, that's what a transliteration system is.
   Also has this incredibly long, branching choose-your-own-adventure list that is totally unwieldy in an encyclopedia article, as opposed to a technical manual, say.
5. Comparison with other orthographies — overbroad, should stick to other romanization systems, dawdles about Literary Chinese for unknown reasons.
6. Unicode code points — does not need this huge table for what are pretty ordinary code points not specifically encoded for pinyin (as far as I know.)
7. Usage — this needs to be higher up, some bits merged with history, and about half of it stripped out entirely, it is laden with original research and WP:FANCRUFT. Maybe some of it could find its own article?

Even for the good headings, all are unfocused and unduly overlap/repeat one another. There are generally not clear distinctions made between various phonological, orthographic, syntactic, and pragmatic concepts. That said, I'm not quite sure how to draw the new sections, suggestions are very much appreciated. Remsense留 16:24, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I've started the rework, and this involves cutting a huge chunk, almost half, of the article out. I am working quickly, and I haven't damaged the article so that a general audience can't find what they're looking for. Normally I would not work this way, but this article was so messy and structurally awry that I really do believe it will be better and quicker to rewrite a lot of content from scratch, and I think its continued presence is a net negative for both reader and editor. Remsense留 01:05, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

(I've put the pre-rework diff at Draft:Pinyin, in case anyone would like to look at it or use it. Remsense留 01:39, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I might be busy this weekend, so the article may remain in this state for a few days. If anyone wants to revert it to the re-rework state because they feel it is unpresentable—though I don't think so—that's completely understandable and I'd prefer the revert than misgivings. Remsense留 15:54, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

@Remsense Could we please restore the section that maps pinyin to Zhuyin/Bopomofo? It's how the standard is defined, but that information is no longer there for any of the initials. Theknightwho (talk) 10:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Theknightwho, please do. — Remsense诉 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Unexplained colors/highlighting in the Initials table

The tables in the Initials section have green, blue, red, pink, yellow, and light-blue highlighting. I wasn't able to find an explanation for the colors anywhere in the article. I found the revision where the table was first added Old revision of Pinyin, but it didn't have an explanation either. What do the colors mean? Stroopwafel Falafel (talk) 22:39, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Some consonants and vowels have varying pronunciation

For example t in ti and tu. c in cen, cong, cu, ce, cao. e in te, teng. A table of pronunciations can be found here: https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table I think the variations in pronunciation should be mentioned somewhere. I believe the spelling irregularities are due to the constraint of mapping the Chinese sounds to the English alphabet, and trying to avoid introducing lots of orthographs. Johanwiden (talk) 15:02, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Every phoneme has varying phonetic values, that's what it means to be a phoneme. Remsense ‥ 论 20:22, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Broken citation link for Hanyu Pinyin scheme 1958 publishing date

Third paragraph of the introduction states "The system was originally promulgated at the Fifth Session of the 1st National People's Congress in 1958". However, in the Works Cited section, the first entry - "汉语拼音方案 [Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet] (in Chinese). Chinese Script Reform Committee. 1982 [1958]. ISO 7098:1982 – via Wikisource." - is a broken link.

Also, this 1958 date was only cited elsewhere in the article, and not in that sentence itself. Bananaspice (talk) 02:42, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I've fixed the link. Remsense ‥ 论 02:46, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Why not write “hànyǔ pīnyīn” with tone marks at least once in the article?

The heading is the question. Jan Arvid Götesson (talk) 04:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a question that I don't understand the motivation for. We don't write diacritical pinyin in running text, and Hànyǔ Pīnyīn appears in the infobox. Remsense ‥ 论 05:51, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Do you mean that one can see tone marks if expanding the Information box by clicking [show]? Yes but that is hidden. Please see that German, French, Spanish and Russian language versions. They say “hànyǔ pīnyīn” in the first sentence. Jan Arvid Götesson (talk) 06:40, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The French and German seem to do so as part of Chinese translations rather than as running prose. The difference then is our lead is currently structured differently, lacking any such translation (although oddly having the characters for Hanyu but nothing for Pinyin). CMD (talk) 06:46, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The structure of articles is a secondary question that can be solved in a suitable way. The main problem is the lack of information. English‑language Wikipedia unfortunately does not always show quickly, in the first 20 words, the hànyǔ pīnyīn version of a Chinese name that is the subject of the article. The articles Mao Zedong and Hua Guofeng have the same problem. Jan Arvid Götesson (talk) 08:20, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

The structure of an article is just that. If there's nowhere it makes sense to put it, then there's nowhere to put it. We have the infobox to mostly centralize the list of lexical forms for a reason, because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and it doesn't really matter what other language Wikipedias choose to do—likewise, they're equally editorially independent from us. Remsense ‥ 论 08:22, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I know that language versions of Wikipedia are independent. I know that there are information boxes when one can find hànyǔ pīnyīn transcriptions if one clicks and looks. I’m just saying that not showing the hànyǔ pīnyīn transcription in the first 20 words is a bad idea. Jan Arvid Götesson (talk) 08:56, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

If Wikipedia were a dictionary I'd probably agree, but Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Remsense ‥ 论 08:57, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

For the pinyin this article, Mao Zedong, and Hua Guofeng, I find the case less persuasive as I might for other articles, as the titles are essentially pinyin as is. Most English readers will gain no additional insight from the diacritics, and those who are interested would probably specifically look for it. CMD (talk) 09:02, 3 April 2025 (UTC)