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How Broadcasters Say "Beijing" | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6050 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 25 of 37 19 August 2008 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree with this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 26 of 37 21 August 2008 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
sakartvelos, yes, it's quite different to Georgia or in Russian, Gruzia. What I don't understand is why he should take offense,I wouldn't if he called my country Spanyolország. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 27 of 37 21 August 2008 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
But nobody (in the original article (or in this thread) is asking anyone to use endonyms for place names. This is not about saying Zhōngguó instead of China, so I don't see how the San-Francisco example cited earlier applies. And to be fair the article is not talking about average people, but instead about people whose job is to cover China. What these news people are doing is hyperforeignism and can be extremely confusing to normal people like me. I originally pronounced it with a j but then switched because all these smart people on TV were pronouncing it with a zh, which sounds more exotic and foreign, so it has to be correct! And I am not really sure that the zh pronunciation is really that standardized in English and sure as hell everyone would know what you're talking about if you say it with a j. So what's wrong with asking the news people to do a little bit research? I mean if they get the pronunciation of Niger correct (most of the time), why not Beijing? What bothers me about the article though, is that it seems to be all intellectuals, mostly non-Chinese, discussing what offends ordinary Chinese people. Even this thread (including this post) is mostly (entirely?) non-Chinese nationals saying what should and should not offend ordinary Chinese. It would have been interesting to find out what the Chinese actually think (as opposed to what they should think). On an unrelated note, does anyone know how exactly countries were ordered in the parade of athletes in the opening ceremony? NBC said it was number of strokes in the first character, is that the analogue of alphabetic order in Chinese in normal use (e.g. dictionaries, lists of any kind, etc.)? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 28 of 37 22 August 2008 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If the modern way of writing the capital is Beijing, it has a j sound which was already present in English with its
specific pronounciation. Why then does anybody have to change the value of this j because in Chinese, the consonant that goes there is pronounced this or that way? Somehow it´s about asking non Chinese people to pronounce the name the Chinese way, which I found it absurd. Who cares how they pronounce? It´s not a matter of disrespect, but every language works its own way, and I don´t think any outsider should mess up with this. As a Spaniard that speaks Spanish, who cares if I like how people pronounce Barcelona, foreigners will call it depending on their own set of sounds, not on ours. No matter if Barcelona hosted an olympiad or a Donkey Kong championship. Talking about Chinese being offended at this reminds me of that stupid controversy with the ad of the Spanish basketball team as if it was the end of the world. Like I say, people is too bored. Edited: Besides, where´s the limit? Should journalists also try to pronounce the correct tones? Anyone cared before about pronouncing Shanghai, Shenzhen, or also Ha Noi or Hue with the proper tone in Mandarin or Vietnamese? Edited by joan.carles on 22 August 2008 at 2:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 29 of 37 22 August 2008 at 3:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's not a big deal or the end of the world. But why not pronounce it closer to native if that's the pronunciation any unsuspecting English speaker would default to? Again I don't see how the tones or all the city names are analogous to this situation. An analogy is if everyone all of a sudden decided to change Moscow to Moskova because it is close to the Russian but doesn't have the awkward consonant cluster. Then everyone on TV start pronouncing it Moskowa because like foreigners turn V's into W's, don't they? But even then I agree who cares, but why be defensive about it? And again I am not saying the Chinese people should be offended. I am just saying I haven't heard a single Chinese (and I've seen some on this forum) saying whether or not they care. It's just a bunch of us telling them how they should feel. I seriously suspect this whole thing hasn't even occured to anyone in China, but I don't know! Joan, I don't know how things are in Spain, but to most people in the US a slant-eyed photo is not the same as an argument over the pronunciation of a place name. Maybe people here are too sensitive, but I was a bit shocked that you thought the two were even close. Again it's not the end of the world (and I doubt there was malice intended), but it sure as hell is offensive. Well anyway, this is a language forum so I guess we shouldn't be discussing this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7015 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 37 22 August 2008 at 3:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
That's what I heard too. 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 31 of 37 24 August 2008 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I don't know who introduced the angle here of whether or not the Chinese are offended about this. I can't see anyone claiming they are, before some posters started making the point that they are not, a case of refuting something that was never claimed in the first place.
They won't expect us to use their native pronunciation in another language, just like we wouldn't expect them to use ours. This is obvious and a non-issue. Apart from pleasing native speakers though, who probably couldn't care less, I do receive some personal satisfaction from at least getting somewhere close to the native pronunciation, within the limits of the sounds existing in my western language. If TV- and radio people are systematically using a different sound, while another closer one is available, I end up feeling a little cheated, and I feel it justified to criticise them since they do wield a certain amount of influence in these things. It's a different story with names where a convention has already been established, different from the native version, eg. Copenhagen as opposed to Kobenhavn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Felixelus Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6838 days ago 237 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 32 of 37 25 August 2008 at 7:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'd just like to make the point that other native English speakers have difficulties pronouncing place names here in England. Some examples: Teignmouth, Leicester Square and Marylebone to name a few!
I certainly don't get annoyed when I hear these mistakes, it only makes me smile! So when a non-native person makes these mistakes definitely wouldn't make me angry. I just think of how I constantly mis-pronounce München or Paris and give the type of forgiveness I'd hope to receive when I'm abroad. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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