Mandarin Chinese Pronunciation Guide

[proycon]

I'm writing a Mandarin Chinese pronunciation guide for UniLang, and I need some help from native chinese speakers.

A draft version of this guide can be found here: http://home.unilang.org/resources/prons ... ion_en.php

I need native speakers for the following:
1) track down and correct any errors, or suggesting ammendments
2) I currently mention one hanzi as example, I'd like more such hanzi, the hanzi should be frequently occuring hanzi in Chinese. In the vowel section, I want one representing each tone, preferably all with a different consonant. For consonants, I want also one in final position (if possible)
3) After enough sample hanzi have been collected, I'd like them to be recorded by one or more native chinese speakers. After all, people learn best by listening!

I hope people can start helping with the first two items.. then in a week or so , we can record stuff...

And in the end, we'll have a nice Mandarin Pronunciation Guide with text & sound, which hopefully enables more people to learn Mandarin Chinese correctly.

[Psi-Lord]

Proy, in case you don't know these links, I thought you might like checking them, too:

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/mandarin.htm
http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/bpmf.htm
http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk/chin_chart_ie.htm

The last one is especially nice, since it compares some romanisation systems to IPA transcriptions.

[uilux]

Here I'll give you some characters for the single vowels:
(the letters I use is Pinyin)
i 一 姨 已 意
ü 雨 遇
a [n] 岸
a 他 爬 卡 大
o 波 佛(fó)
u 哭 熟(shú) 虎 路
e 喝 德 乐
e[initial] 儿
e[-ng or -n]门 恨 闷 层 生
i [быть] 私 资 雌

[勺园之鬼]

Proy, in case you don't know these links, I thought you might like checking them, too:

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/mandarin.htm
http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/bpmf.htm

These 2 first links are not even worth watching... The first one gives a wrong IPA correspondances, and the second one explains bopomofo, an archaic system used by young children in Taiwan in the past.

http://www.elgin.free-online.co.uk/chin_chart_ie.htm

The last one is especially nice, since it compares some romanisation systems to IPA transcriptions.

Hoping that these archaic and unaccurate transcriptions will disappear soon. Unfortunately, old reactionarian researchers in some western countries still tend to use it. We can wait for them to pass away as soon as possible, and their (very good) works to be transcribed into pinyin

[Glossika]

junming,

你寫錯！

第一點：其實提到那兩個網站(Dylan Sung所寫的)使用的國際音標都沒有錯，問題在於你自己沒學過漢語音系或聲韻學。我建議你先讀廣韻這本書，再來此批評人家。拜託，多看一點書啦。
若你覺得你自己用的國際音標比較準確，趕快寫在這裡讓我們都來分析分析，不然你就沒有立場。

第二點：真是無知。注音符號絕不是古老的音系，反切才是！你顯然沒有研究過，怎麼可以當作專家？連我自己的小孩現在上學必須要學注音符號。因為人生目前已經可以活過捌拾歲，你還有等至少壹佰年的時間。注音符號沒有你所想像的那麼快地消失。
請不要誤會，我不會那麼忠實地支持這個音系，不過你無可否認它的存在以及現代所寬闊範圍的應用。

You err!

1: The IPA usage in the two aforementioned sites by Dylan Sung are in fact accurate. I'm afraid you haven't studied Sinitic phonology to tell the difference. I suggest you do more research before criticizing the accurate work of others. Otherwise, let's see your IPA renditions for us all to ridicule.
Not only do I strongly support all the work Dylan Sung has done on his site, but I can also claim that it is accurate, as much as I have been able to review.

You can do a search for 国际音标 on a search engine, for example, baidu.com http://www.baidu.com/baidu?word=%B9%FA%BC%CA%D2%F4%B1%EA%B1%ED&cl=3, the 1st five sites don't have a chart, but the 6th one (my site), does. You should study the chart more carefully. My chart is not comprehensive, but only as applies within the Sinitic branch of languages.

2: Du hörst dich so ungebildet an, here we have naïveté at its worst. "Bopomofo" is not the archaic system, I think you mean to say "fanqie" is!
Again, your words lack research on the matter, so how can you write like an expert? Even my own children have to learn "Bopomofo". So, if you would just consider that people live longer than 80 years now, you still have to wait at least 100 years (if not longer) for it to disappear, and that doesn't indicate that our children's children will not be learning it either. It's not going to disappear as fast as you think. (N.B.: it seems "fanqie" took about a thousand years)

Don't misunderstand me as a staunch supporter of "Bopomofo" as I neither read it well nor use it, but the fact of the matter is you can neither deny its existence nor its wide application in the modern world just based on the premise that you don't live in the country where it is primarily used.
"Bopomofo" nor any other system should really create barriers for people. Recognizing more phonetic symbols and romanizations (or cyrillicizations) are for our benefit and helps keeps our brains active and in working order. Bluntly, I do prefer "pinyin". At my site, you can reference about 1200 syllables in 6 romanizations mapped to their "Bopomofo" equivalents.

Yes, there are some researchers that are extremely staunch supporters of rather less-used systems. One particular western researcher of (primarily) Hangzhou Wu and other Wu varieties uses Guoyu Luomazi, but it appears he's keeping it alive teaching all his students. I don't like the system, but that doesn't prevent me from being able to read it! And I didn't spend any time having to learn it--it's mostly the ability to recognize patterns and you can read anything you want. It's just another way to write.

Sorry to bust your bubble, no hard feelings, ok?

James Campbell
#1 "Chinese Languages and Dialects" Resource on the Internet
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/

[uilux]

非常抱歉我好久没有到这里来了，不知proycon的教程进展如何！！
Here I want to say that the phonetic system proycon’s course is a little from what we use in the mainland.
Now, I’ll go on giving you some characters:
Vowel (diphthongs)
ei 黑 肥 北 内
ai 开 来 百 派
ao 高 刨 找 少
ou 抽 头 手 候
ie 列 写 别 贴
ia 家 假 恰
ǖe 约 略
uan 卵 短 款 断
(after j q x) 捐 圈 宣
uo 脱 夺 火 诺
ua 蛙 华 瓦 化
Vowels (triphthongs)
“iai yai” we have no such triphthongs in mandarin!!
iao yao 腰 摇 咬 要
iu you 优 游 有 又
uei wei 危 围 伟 卫
uai wai 歪 怀 揣 坏