# Mandarin Romanization



## maghanish2

你好!

I have a quick question about the pronuncation of Mandarin Chinese.  I have found many different websites that give pronunciations but they all seem to be different.  For example, for the word 寸 one website says it is pronounced like the English "cune" but another says it is pronounced like the English "cunn".  I was just wondering if the pronunciation of Mandarin is different throughout China and Taiwan, and if it wasn't standard.

Another example would be for the word 身.  I've heard it both "shenn" and "shun".

I am very confused and would appreciate any help!

謝謝！


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## sarahyo

寸 比较像"ts-u-n" 
身 是“shen”
China and Taiwan的发音大体差不多，在语气和音调上有一点区别。
我的英文不好，只能看懂，但不会说。所以，不知道我说的你能明白吗？


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## wj1361

Hello maghanish2,

I have same finding as a chinese in CHN Mainland.
From my point of view, there is no difference in Mandarin pronunciation between CHN and Taiwan but different spelling in PinYin.

For example, I have a Taiwan colleague whose last name is '颜' that is spelt with 'Yen' in taiwan while 'Yan' in Mainland. However, we have same pronunciation on the word in communication.

Personally I supposed the spelling in taiwan may be better for western people to pronounce. Could you confirm this ?

Of course, maybe there is another better explanation.
let's see.

Best regards
Jwang


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## Dragonseed

Hello maghanish2, and all,

The problem you are facing here is that there are several different transliteration systems for Mandarin Chinese. If Mandarin Chinese is pronounced everywhere the same way (or should be, if you excuse a few variations when the speaker is from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Taipei or Paris!), its phonetic can actually be "written" in many different ways.

So far, I have found the Roman Pinyin (widely used in Mainland China) the less confusing, but you have to learn the proper pronounciation of each letter and groups of letters. Very similar in its logic is the Bopomofo system used in Taiwan to teach kids and foreigners (but it uses specific signs, not the Roman alphabet).
_For example, ZH is pronounced /dj/, and C pronounced /ts/. You can't guess that, you have to learn it, and it does not come naturally to you unless it is the same in your own language._

I believe most "official" translations of Chinese cities and people's names are now in Roman Pinyin (hence the "Beijing" spelling that replaced the "Pekin" one on modern maps), unless the older transliteration was too well kown ("Mao Tse Tung" is still widely used, while it should be "Mao Zi Dong" in Pinyin).

Other transliteraton system may be more intuitive to foreigners who want to be able to pronounce without having to learn too much, but I personaly find that they can be confusing if you want to use them to learn the language. What I really appreciate in Roman Pinyin is that the consonant's pronounciation is "absolute", while you can have in other systems different pronounciations for the same consonant depending on the vowel that follows...

The two spelling you use in your post (cune/cunn) do not look like any "official" system I have seen. This is also the difficulty: sometimes, people create their own (or adapt an existing one) so that it feels closer to the way the words would be pronounced in their own language...

Taiwan has recently produced a new transliteration system using Roman alphabet, called "Tung Yung Pinyin" (lit. "Pinyin for common use") that is supposed to be covering the sounds of Mandarin, Taiwanese (Hokkien), and possibly the various aborigenal languages we have in our island. In my opinion, trying to be useful for everything it actually fails to be useful at all...

Wikipedia has an article on Chinese Transliteration that you could have a look at a more correct (and less biased!) view on the issue.


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## xiaolijie

> "Mao Tse Tung" is still widely used, while it should be "Mao Zi Dong" in Pinyin


No, it shouldn't. It should be "Mao Zedong"!

Whichever Romanisation system should be fine, as long as it is consistent and we are consistent. Try to master it and don't blame the tool for our problems. 
I use _pinyin_ because of it popularity, and therefore, convenience.


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## Wobby

I think the spelling of '寸' in Hanyu Pinyin is deceptive, because it is spelt 'cùn', but is pronounced something like 'tsoo-uhn', with the 'uh' being the schwa sound like in '*a*bout'. I think '身' (shēn) is pronounced with a similar sound: 'sh - uhn'.

The one I have never been certain about is the 'üan' sound, because I have heard it pronounced differently, even sometimes from the same speaker if they are speaking the word in isolation or as part of a sentence! As in 拳 quán, 炫 xuàn, and 员 yuán. Is it pronounced 'ü-arn' ('ar' as in 'arm'), 'ü-ên' ('ê' as in 'egg') or 'ü-uhn' ('uh' as in 'about')? Thanks!


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## Dragonseed

Sorry for mis-spelling Mr Mao's name in Pinyin. I hope he won't mind!...


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## BODYholic

Chinese characters are romanized differently depending, chiefly, on where the writers (usually non-Chinese) come from. Example an American speaker may code the same Chinese words differently from, say, someone who is from UK.
Chinese people learn Chinese via HanYuPingYing which may be difficult for non-native learner to understand. As such, there are web sites or existing language books that teach Mandarin using romanized sounds. These resulted in the variances in "spellings".



maghanish2 said:


> 你好!
> 
> I have a quick question about the pronuncation of Mandarin Chinese.  I have found many different websites that give pronunciations but they all seem to be different.  For example, for the word 寸 one website says it is pronounced like the English "cune" but another says it is pronounced like the English "cunn".  I was just wondering if the pronunciation of Mandarin is different throughout China and Taiwan, and if it wasn't standard.
> 
> Another example would be for the word 身.  I've heard it both "shenn" and "shun".
> 
> I am very confused and would appreciate any help!
> 
> 謝謝！


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## maghanish2

Thanks everyone!

I use the Hanyu Pinyin system, as that is what is in the book for Chinese that I have bought.  And to clarify, the transliterations that I made in my original post are not from any official romanization script.  I was simply writing them like they would be pronounced in English.

So, from what I've read, 身 is pronounced more like sheun (with the eu being like in the word f*oo*t), and then 寸 is pronounced like cune (like in the word s*ou*p).

I am probably wrong so please correct me, but remember the transliterations I am using are ones that I made up just so you could undersatnd my dilemma.

And is the consensus that throughout different parts of PRC they do not pronounce stuff differently?  

Thanks again!  You are all SO helpful!


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## Wobby

OK, I'm not a native, but from what I have gathered (and according to Wikipedia) that the 'en' in 'shen' is pronounced like the end part of 'taken' [it's a slightly different sound to the one in 'foot' or 'book'].

The description you gave for 'cun' sounds about right, apart from it has a 'ts' sound at the beginning, and after the 'oo' sound, there is also an 'uh' sound. Or, if you prefer, it ends in the same 'en' sound as in 'taken'. It's not just "tsoon" - it's "tsoo-uhn". I recall I made that mistake for quite a while... (I kept saying 'choon tien' for chūn tiān 春天 instead of 'choo-uhn tien'). So I guess it's worth double-checking what the pinyin pronunciations should sound like and not taking some spellings for granted as what it would sound like in English - for example, the 'yan' mentioned earlier, which is actually pronounced 'ien'. 

Regarding the different pronunciations, I think there can be differences such as the extra Beijing 'r' in certain words, the 'sh' sound kind of turns into an 's', or the 'z' kind of turns into a 'j' (well, the latter two are what my Mum does when she tries to speak Mandarin, because she speaks a southern dialect! ), but this isn't Standard Mandarin, which _should_ sound the same regardless of where you are in the country.


p.s. Does anyone else have any suggestions about the pronounciation of the 'a' in -üan/quan/xuan/yuan? This is one that has been inconsistent. I know in Wikipedia, it lists it as an 'ɛ' sound as in 'get', but in some sites, the recording makes it sound like an 'ɑ' like in 'bang', or an 'ə' like in 'above'... Any help would be much appreciated!


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## maghanish2

Thanks Wobby!  It really helps and I think my questions have been answered.  If anyone else wants to add their opinion, I would GREATLY appreciate it!


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## xiaolijie

Wobby said:
			
		

> Does anyone else have any suggestions about the pronounciation of the 'a' in -üan/quan/xuan/yuan? This is one that has been inconsistent.


All the above syllables should be prounced with an 'ɛ' sound, whereas guan/huan/duan, for example, should be pronounced with an 'a' sound. The reason is the former group has got the final _/üan/ whereas the final in the latter is simply _/uan/.
My explanation is correct for standard putonghua, but since China is large and there are areas where people don't differentiate them and consequently pronounce them all as _/uan/.


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## Wobby

Ah, OK, thanks! So the standard pronunciation is 'yɛn', but people speaking with their normal accent might not pronounce it this way. I did think it was pronounced differently from the normal -uan final, but I wasn't sure about whether it was a schwa (ə) or an ɛ, because I had heard both...


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## pronunciation lover

Chers amis,
These questions really puzzled me when I tried to feel the differences of the sounds raised by the meticulous friends in the above paragraphs. Being a native speaker of Mandarin born and raised in Beijing, I never had the opportunity to turn my thoughts on these questions until I saw the questions raised by foreigners who had to rely on Pin Yin, which turns out to be so hopelessly inadequate a guide on pronunciation for foreign learners as compared to IPA. The problem of cun & shen arises probably because of the problem that there is no pure 'n' sound in Chinese. People could only pronounce 'en' when seeing 'n'('e' being the Eng.schwa). For shen, there's no problem. For cun, it would be heard as tsu-en or ts-wen. Yan's 'an' really always sounds yen, and never like 'an' in dan. Dragonseed is right that PinYin is not accurate for learning pronunciation. IPA much better. better create your own symbols. quan/xuan/yuan=difficult, sometimes, you hear 'an', sometimes, 'en'(yen). As beginners, you tend to hear more 'an' as the pronouncer on tapes would want to read clearly and emphatically for beginners, but when spoken naturally, they tend to be 'en's as in egg/pen. 'e' in shen = Eng schwa, different from 'e' in she (a more rear vowel, more like 'u' in foot without pursing the mouth). chun tian sounds chu-en or ch-wen (e= Eng schwa) tien (e=pen). But this kind of pronunciation is more likely to be used for clear and emphatic speech, for relaxed speech, the tendency is to nazalised the vowel, to be discussed later. sh-r=pair of vocalised/non-vocalised, s has no counterpart, ts-dz, ch-zh. yuan's 'an' is never the same as Eng. schwa. More emphatically, it's an, but more often in relaxed speech, 'en' in pen/yen. it (vowel "e" + n) could also be nazalised like in French [3~]. In fact almost all vowels + n could be nazalised ~. 'an' like bien in French. 'yen' a narrower bien in French. 'en' (shen) like 'un' (one) in French (old and outdated way of pronouncing 'un'). Beginning learners of any language need not worry about regional pronunciation variations when learning to pronounce. they should only follow the standard of the standard PTH (those heard on radio). For listening practice it's different. but really no need to mimic regional accents. so don't worry about Taiwan or Singapore or Shanghai or even Beijingren's accents.


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## Oison

Hi,guys:
there are the different rules between English and TWN pinyin and Mainland Pinyin,
Taken Shanghai for exmple,here Sh,In Chinese you shold roll your tongue ,but in English,it doesnt.
so you can see it different *Pronunciation* speak from a Chinese and a foreign


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