Re:Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers
by kragen on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:36AM
(#27960744)
Probably you speak more Chinese than I do, but as I understand it, you don't have to memorize the syllables, just the 22 (?) onsets and 17 (?) vowel+codas, same as in bopomofo, just more sneakily. Plus nü and lü, I guess. But that still means memorizing 41 pronunciations instead of the 374 you suggest. Is that right, or is the situation far more complicated than it appears?
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Re:Pronouncing non-English names for English speakers
by gurkendoktor on Monday July 26, 2021 @12:42PM
(#27961642)
I've never learned bopomofo in earnest, and for pinyin I just memorized everything that felt like an exception to me, even though it might have some internal logic. For example, I guess that the "a" in "yan" is different from "lan" because "yan" is its own coda, whereas "lan" is "l" + "an"?