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How Broadcasters Say "Beijing" | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 37 17 August 2008 at 8:51am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, and I repeated that mistake above, accepting what the article said without thinking it through or checking. Sorry about that, though it's still a valid point that the j-sound is closer. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 10 of 37 17 August 2008 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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At least it's closer than Peking. Whoever romanized that version must have been on opium.
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| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 37 17 August 2008 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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On the other hand western cities and geographical names fare no better when they are converted in the other direction.
Translitterated names like Lundun and Niuyue are still close enough to be recognised as London and New York, at least with a bit of imagination and after having them pointed out to you. But noone could probably guess the meaning of "jiu jin shan", even with the translation available (old gold hill). This is what San Francisco is called in Chinese. Then there's "niu jin" (literally "ox ford") the Chinese name for Oxford. By analogy I sometimes talk about "Skyford" when chatting with Chinese people. Usually noone can make the connection and translate it back into "Tianjin" (sky ford) a seaside city a short distance southeast of Beijing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 37 17 August 2008 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
But, isn't "treasure" ([ʒ]) closer to /r/ than /zh/ - to my ears the /zh/ would have the tongue curled back. Anyway, I have yet to hear somebody pronounce Beijing with the /zh/. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 17 August 2008 at 6:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 13 of 37 17 August 2008 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Another thing I just thought of. Using an English j-sound is still wrong. That's about the same as the pinyin zh
sound (not related to the zh sound you guys are talking about). The pinyin j sound, as in Beijing, is made with the tongue in the same position as the English ee sound(as in eek). Another thing - the tones have to be right. I bet Chinese people are no more annoyed by the mispronounced j (no matter how it's mispronounced) than the wrong tones. This thread reminds me of that old Saturday Night lives skit where the bilingual Spanish speaker was the only one using the English versions of Spanish words. All the native English speakers were using the correct pronunciations, and it sounded odd. I'm sure it would freak people out if we decided to correctly pronounce all loan words. Especially the high tone in Beijing. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 37 18 August 2008 at 3:59am | IP Logged | |||||
I think the "zh-sound" mentioned in that article, and that has been discussed here, did not refer to the Chinese zh-sound (which does have the tongue curled back). It was more like an improvised representation of [ʒ], as the s in treasure. (leosmith pointed out the same above "not related to the zh sound you guys are talking about"). Edited by Hencke on 18 August 2008 at 4:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| alfajuj Diglot Senior Member Taiwan Joined 6211 days ago 121 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Taiwanese, French | Message 15 of 37 18 August 2008 at 5:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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I can guarantee that no Chinese people will think that foreigners who don't speak Mandarin are being culturally insensitive by the way that they mispronounce the word Beijing. They don't expect them to get it right and they don't mind. After all, they're speaking English, not Mandarin.
All English place names get totally mangled in the process of transliterating them into Chinese. Does that bother you in the least as a speaker of English? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6151 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 16 of 37 18 August 2008 at 9:22am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know if this is directly related to the issue in question, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing.
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