Some Mandarin Mispronunciations

Why you mandarin pronunciation always sounds like English pronunciation? In what time there will be easy to make a mandarin mispronunciation? Go on reading, and you will find some answers.

Pinyin may be the most common system of Mandarin Romanization - converting the pronunciation of Chinese characters into spellings utilizing the Western (Roman) alphabet.

Pinyin is a relatively new system, having been developed during the 1950s. You may find numerous other systems of Romanization that were in use prior to Pinyin. These include Wade-Giles, Yale, and several other people.

Chinese words and names that have been recognized on the Western planet before the 1950s have been spelled utilizing various Romanization methods, all of which have diverse conventions. Many of these spellings persist, using the outcome that several Chinese names are mispronounced.

Beijing (北京 Běijīng) or Peking (北京 Běijīng)？

As an example, you might remember that the capital of China used to become Peking, however it is now Beijing. But in China, the name of the city in no way changed- it had been usually 北京. The title Peking is just an alternate Romanization from the Chinese characters, which are at the moment transliterated to Beijing.

The same is accurate for several other cities in China, which includes Nanjing（南京 Nánjīng）(formerly called Nanking) and Chongqing（重庆 Chóngqìng）(Chungking).

Because Taiwan（台湾 Táiwān） does not officially use Pinyin, the Romanized variations of many Taiwan cities are still quite distinct from their Mandarin pronunciation.Keelung（基隆 Jīlóng）, for example, is in fact pronounced Jīlóng, and Taipei（台北 Táiběi）, the capital of Taiwan, should to be pronounced Táiběi.

It is of much importance to note that these early Romanization system were correct, it’s just that they used conventions which were not extensively recognized. For instance, the Wade-Giles chi is equivalent towards the Pinyin ji, so English speakers tend to pronounce the ch of taichi (太极 tàijí) as in chat, rather than the more exact sound of ji as in jeep. Pinyin also has some unconventional pronunciations, but around the complete, Pinyin spellings are pronounced a lot more accurately.

Common Mispronunciations

There are many Mandarin words that are mispronounced for their “leftover” spellings. Here are a few that come to mind:

Chinese	Pinyin	English
豆腐	dòufu	tofu
功夫	gōngfu	kong fu
太极	tàijí	taichi
道	dào	dao
道教	dàojiāo	Taoism
荔枝	lìzhī	lychee
台中	Táizhōng	Taichung

 Next time when you see these words， never make a misproununciation again, ok?