Violent Protests In Hong Kong.

iamgroot

ilkhanid wrote: »

I do. I have a strong dislike of Pinyin and it's weird spellings and ubiquitous 'x's' (not that Wade-Giles didn't have problems)..and I'm not the only one. Even Taiwan didn't adopt the mainland version but a modified one and its still retains the old spelling for places where people were familiar with the old spelling: it's still 'Taipei' not 'Taibei'. I have an unpleasant memory of combing laboriously through my old copy of a standard history of Chinese Art, pencilling in the new spellings of all the people and places.

The 'official' romanization system in Taiwan is - believe it or not - Hanyu Pinyin. However you'd never think that because, locals don't read or write romanised Chinese for any practical purpose. Schools use Chinese phonetic symbols to teach pronunciation. Local governments are free to adopt other systems - and they do. Old signage is not generally not changed. Established names were not changed. Etc etc. You can find street signs with three different spellings within a couple of hundred yards. But it doesn't matter cause nobody reads them.

There are not that many x's in pinyin. X is only used to represent one sound. It occurs less than quite a few other letters. Probably just stands out to an English reader becasue x is less common in English.

Yurt2

pauldla wrote: »

That aside, it's becoming unusual to see people referring to 'Peking'; from my experience it's usually those with some kind of agenda.

北大 is still Peking University in English and they market themselves as such.

I remember before the Olympics in 2008 it was rather common to hear 'Peking' used.

In Cantonese, it's Bak Ging, which would have been the dominant language in the Chinese diaspora until fairly recently - so it's perhaps forgivable that most European languages held to (and many still do) to an approximation of Peking.

volchitsa

iamgroot wrote: »

The 'official' romanization system in Taiwan is - believe it or not - Hanyu Pinyin. However you'd never think that because, locals don't read or write romanised Chinese for any practical purpose. Schools use Chinese phonetic symbols to teach pronunciation. Local governments are free to adopt other systems - and they do. Old signage is not generally not changed. Established names were not changed. Etc etc. You can find street signs with three different spellings within a couple of hundred yards. But it doesn't matter cause nobody reads them.

There are not that many x's in pinyin. X is only used to represent one sound. It occurs less than quite a few other letters. Probably just stands out to an English reader becasue x is less common in English.

What's the difference in pronunciation between X and SH? I can hear that a following U is different, one (SH) being more the broad OU sound that we nordies have difficulties with in French (like route) and the XU being the narrow U that English people can't say in French (like rue) but is that really the main difference? That can't be true for all vowels can it?

Also, why do some combinations not seem to appear together? Like, there's SHOU but not XOU? If it's just a way of writing the phonetics then that seems to mean that the difference between SH and X is not just in the following vowel sounds. But I can't hear what it is, other than that.

iamgroot

volchitsa wrote: »

What's the difference in pronunciation between X and SH? I can hear that a following U is different, one (SH) being more the broad OU sound that we nordies have difficulties with in French (like route) and the XU being the narrow U that English people can't say in French (like rue) but is that really the main difference? That can't be true for all vowels can it?

Also, why do some combinations not seem to appear together? Like, there's SHOU but not XOU? If it's just a way of writing the phonetics then that seems to mean that the difference between SH and X is not just in the following vowel sounds. But I can't hear what it is, other than that.

There is a different sound for X and SH but you are correct they also a followed by different vowels too. I never use Pinyin myself. You can probably get a table of all the sounds on Wikipedia. Like with clickable sound bites. To make the sound represented by X in Pinyin try saying an English SH whilst doing a Cheshire cat smile and with your teeth together.

volchitsa

iamgroot wrote: »

There is a different sound for X and SH but you are correct they also a followed by different vowels too. I never use Pinyin myself. You can probably get a table of all the sounds on Wikipedia.

I can, but as they use phonetic symbols I'm not familiar with (I can struggle through phonetics for English and a couple of European languages but just can't work out many of the Chinese ones) it's still not clear to me.

I'm a complete beginner, well not even beginner really, Im not actually taking classes or anything. But I'll be visiting there in the near future so I'd like to have a few notions before I go.

When you say you don't use Pinyin, does that mean you read Chinese characters? Was that not almost impossible? How did you get started?

volchitsa

iamgroot wrote: »

There is a different sound for X and SH but you are correct they also a followed by different vowels too. I never use Pinyin myself. You can probably get a table of all the sounds on Wikipedia. Like with clickable sound bites. To make the sound represented by X in Pinyin try saying an English SH whilst doing a Cheshire cat smile and with your teeth together.

Thanks! So it's almost blown out through the sides of your mouth?

I've downloaded an app that lets me pick each syllable separately. I haven't worked out how to put them together though, that's the next difficulty. I can't get my head around how you respect all the tones while actually talking to people. Like, don't you have to change tones to ask questions? It seems a bit like singing, where you have to sing the right note no matter what emotion is being expressed. Very odd.

pauldla

Yurt! wrote: »

北大 is still Peking University in English and they market themselves as such.

I remember before the Olympics in 2008 it was rather common to hear 'Peking' used.

In Cantonese, it's Bak Ging, which would have been the dominant language in the Chinese diaspora until fairly recently - so it's perhaps forgivable that most European languages held to (and many still do) to an approximation of Peking.

Yes, BeiDa still market themselves as Peking University; as pointed out by iamgroot, it's an established name, in this case a brand. But it *is* becoming rarer to see. And as for 'Peiping'... :pac:

pauldla

volchitsa wrote: »

Thanks! So it's almost blown out through the sides of your mouth?

I've downloaded an app that lets me pick each syllable separately. I haven't worked out how to put them together though, that's the next difficulty. I can't get my head around how you respect all the tones while actually talking to people. Like, don't you have to change tones to ask questions? It seems a bit like singing, where you have to sing the right note no matter what emotion is being expressed. Very odd.

What app are you using? Questions are usually formed by using a question word and/or a question particle like ma, ba or ne at the end of the sentence. That took me a while to get used to TBH (I had a habit of using a rising tone for questions like we do in English) but you get used to it.

Subcomandante Marcos

Is it any wonder that the OP of this post is a serial boot licker who defends the human rights abuses of other ethnofacist governments?

Absolute joke of a thread.

volchitsa

pauldla wrote: »

What app are you using? Questions are usually formed by using a question word and/or a question particle like ma, ba or ne at the end of the sentence. That took me a while to get used to TBH (I had a habit of using a rising tone for questions like we do in English) but you get used to it.

I downloaded a bunch of free apps, I’m not really intending (ie able, I suspect!) to learn much but am poking around a bit.
The one that has all the syllables separately is just called Mandarin, with a logo of a Mandarin orange. Pleco looked great but I’m too mean to pay for it (but as I think I said, my two “expats” were very grateful for the tip and they use it all the time).

iamgroot

volchitsa wrote: »

I can, but as they use phonetic symbols I'm not familiar with (I can struggle through phonetics for English and a couple of European languages but just can't work out many of the Chinese ones) it's still not clear to me.

I'm a complete beginner, well not even beginner really, Im not actually taking classes or anything. But I'll be visiting there in the near future so I'd like to have a few notions before I go.

When you say you don't use Pinyin, does that mean you read Chinese characters? Was that not almost impossible? How did you get started?

I speak Chinese fluently - first language at home - but I am semi literate at best. I only use pinyin for typing, but I don't type much.

Things that worked for me when learning are:

- Got an audio dictionary that repeats words and phrases in English and in Chinese, and just listened to them. It was an audio dictionary for Chinese speakers learning English, but it worked just as well the other way round. It was a book plus CD. I just listened to it without concentrating and let the sounds in by osmosis, I literally used to listen to it as I went to sleep.

- Picked a favorite movie and watched it over and over again in Chinese

- Ignored tones: If you forget tones and just concentrate on saying the phrases the same way Chinese people say them, then you will be close to correct. (However if you consciously try to pronounce tones you will - if you are like me - miss pronounce and over pronounce them and wind up with incorrect pronunciation.)

- Live in a town where no one speaks any English at all, and in that way become forced to communicate in Chinese: its rough, but it is extremely effective.

- Have a social circle of non English speakers. Pretty much the same as the previous point. But even if you are in a big city you can choose to interact with people that have English, or you can seek out ones that don't. Not everyone is going to be interested in talking with you if your Chinese is at a low level, but some will.

-Download an app called Chinese perekun in firefox. As you mouse over characters the pinyin will pop up.

Best of luck





-

dwayneshintzy

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

Is it any wonder that the OP of this post is a serial boot licker who defends the human rights abuses of other ethnofacist governments?

Absolute joke of a thread.

Hard to know where you stand on the protests with this one......ILoveYourVibes has been vocally pro-protest, though hasn't posted in a while.

iamgroot

iamgroot wrote: »

Things that worked for me when learning are:

Ditto. Good points. I'm semi-fluent in speaking Mandarin (in some situations, I'm still rather awkward although I have the vocabulary), and have two dialects to the level of being able to maintain casual conversations for extended periods.

The Michel Thomas audiotapes for learning Chinese are rather good, and have a lot of useful/practical content. A good starting point to get past the basics. I found most of the other tapes to be pretty useless.

Tones are something to come back to once you've got a base reference with a larger variety of words. I found trying to learn/use the tones from the beginning just tripped me up, especially since the dialects all move around the tones. They are needed though if you want to work here with the more official organisations since many people will ignore you if you don't have the tones correct, or at least, close to being right.

It's sometimes useful to pick up a dialect like shanghai or Chongqing which can help towards gaining confidence and tend to be "easier" than mainstream Chinese. I speak Shaanxi dialect and Chongqing from living there, because they're similar (although not the same) in use, and their curses/insults are hilarious. It's also mostly where I've lived Shaanxi/Sichuan.

Chinese State TV is fantastic for getting pronunciation for mainstream Chinese since most of the channels speak far slower than people outside. Plus the imagery helps to gain the cultural associations with many phrases. I'd recommend a popular TV show to watch religiously because it gives you something to talk to general Chinese about and lessens the distance between you, a foreigner, and them. There's a few to choose from.

Read history and some of the cultural literary epics in English because it gives links to the logic used in their language, and provides a reference for many of the idioms/sayings that people regularly use. Some of the books have been published in pinyin, although there's not many of those. Still, very useful for learning if you can get your hands on a copy.

I'd suggest living in a small city (1-3 million). No need to live in a town or village since it amounts to the same thing. I lived in both Weinan and Baoji, and there were only 6-9 other foreigners around at those times. English is generally very rare. It is hard, although all of China is improving. Don't do the countryside. That's a case of masochism (lack of facilities and home comforts), and what with nationalism on the rise, isn't a terribly pleasant way to live.

Get the English version of Wechat (i got mine from the Irish Huawei app store). It helps enormously as the Chinese version can be frustrating. You'll also want QQ since many younger people use it, although almost everyone will have wechat.

Learning Chinese is a struggle. Even now, sometimes I feel like a newbie because some conversations just don't click. Still... it's worth investing time in, if you're staying in-country. Your lifestyle will improve immeasurably.

iamgroot

Deleted User wrote: »

Ditto. Good points.

Totally agree with your points too. Learning Dialect can actually be a big step forward in improving fluency in standard Chinese. I found it helped me a lot when I spent time in a rural town that spoke a non Mandarin dialect, I went in as a cautious stumbler and emerged fluent just a couple of months later, from a town that ironically enough was not Mandarin speaking. The difference I think between the city and the small town I found was that in the small town people are in and out of each others houses like Ireland in the 1930's. Everyone wants to know about you and you get inundated with conversation. Probably not recommended for extended periods for a variety of reasons though, although people do it.

Wechat: for sure, that is a must, id even get on that in Ireland for the poster that was asking

iamgroot

iamgroot wrote: »

The difference I think between the city and the small town I found was that in the small town people are in and out of each others houses like Ireland in the 1930's.

That's still the case in many of the Apartment tower complexes. I have 5 "aunties" here who get the key to my apartment from the security guys and leave gifts of dinner in my apartment, or do a clean up. They're amazed that I'm in my 40s and still single. And not gay. I regularly sit outside in the shared garden area and just chat with them with their grandchildren. It's a fun experience especially once you learn enough Chinese to appreciate the "dirty" humor.

Everyone wants to know about you and you get inundated with conversation. Probably not recommended for extended periods for a variety of reasons though, although people do it.

China is changing though and I wouldn't do the town/village thing again. The poor and uneducated are usually the first to succumb to the anti-foreigner rhetoric and in spite of all the claims of raising up people out of poverty, China has a crap-ton of truly poor people. The wave of nationalism encourages a lot more violence towards foreigners because the police are no longer actively discouraging it. It's different in the cities. There's a zero tolerance attitude of violent crime towards foreigners, but that's relaxed considerably in the towns/villages.

I'll be in China for another year, but I'm pretty much done here. I don't like the way society is changing in many places. Before it was just government propaganda that most people ignored, but now, it's something far more tense and widespread.

iamgroot

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'll be in China for another year, but I'm pretty much done here. I don't like the way society is changing in many places. Before it was just government propaganda that most people ignored, but now, it's something far more tense and widespread.

I moved to Taiwan five years ago. I go to Guangdong and Hunan bout once a year. Often think about moving back to Ireland but it's tricky to organise work and visas. I'm thinking 2021 though as a possibility. Will see if I can actually make it happen.

Surprised you mention about violence against foreigners, was unheard of when I lived in Guangdong and Hunan. There was a couple of stories but all involving drink and/or idiocy. Generally you could say 'if you behave you won't have any trouble'. Is xenophobic violence a thing now?

iamgroot

iamgroot wrote: »

I moved to Taiwan five years ago. I go to Guangdong and Hunan bout once a year. Often think about moving back to Ireland but it's tricky to organise work and visas. I'm thinking 2021 though as a possibility. Will see if I can actually make it happen.

I quite enjoy Taiwan. Very different "feel" to mainland China, although in some ways they're a harder people.

Surprised you mention about violence against foreigners, was unheard of when I lived in Guangdong and Hunan. There was a couple of stories but all involving drink and/or idiocy. Generally you could say 'if you behave you won't have any trouble'. Is xenophobic violence a thing now?

It's not that exactly. The patience is evaporating towards foreigners who misstep. Many foreigners come here for a year or two to study (party/play) and then leave. I've encountered very few foreigners who stay long enough to learn the intricacies of the cultural norms. So, the foreigners who get drunk, grope girls with boyfriends, insult China publicly, etc.. were previously tolerated (for the most part), but I'm hearing stories of beatings for previously minor offences. Don't get me wrong.. in most cases, the foreigners have it coming to them. They wouldn't get away with the same behavior at home, but it's still a sign that things are changing in the cities.

In the towns/villages, it's more about hostile staring, spitting, etc which I had thought had died out but seems to have resurfaced. You know yourself. With China, it's about all the little things adding up to something greater. Anyway, after just over a decade here, I'm quite done with Chinese culture, and habits. Japan, or Korea next for a year or two, and then back to Europe. Can't imagine myself living in Ireland again though (not an insult to Ireland, but rather just the way my personality and desire for social lifestyle have evolved into)

iamgroot

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You know yourself. With China, it's about all the little things adding up to something greater.

Yea, that's pretty much why I moved. Have also been considering Europe too for the future. Ha ha, yea Taiwanese do the passive aggressive thing

Yurt2

Thin-skinned China giving Arsenal the old Houston Rockets treatment after Mesut Ozil sends a tweet expressing his opinion on the Xinjiang crackdown.

I have to say, 2019 has been a watershed year for China's relationship with the outside world. I've lost count how many companies/countries/sports teams/individuals have 'hurt the feelings of the Chinese people*'.

Everyone from Lady Gaga to the nation of Sweden have been ever so mean.

*Chinese Communist Party

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/50799009

Muahahaha

Thats something else. Though I must say I am jealous that the Chinese get to watch the Premier League for free on state run tv !

Still though when they throw their toys out of the pram it seems to work. The NBA went scrambling to appease them after Daryl Morey expressed his support for Hong Kong. Basketball is massive in China so the NBA whimpered for fear of a financial hit. It shows the clout the CCP has and how companies are scared of upsetting them.

Quantum Erasure

'freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences'

ILoveYourVibes

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

'freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences'

You should be able to criticize the govt without going to jail.

iamgroot

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

The chinese don't understand it. And there is difference between Catonese speaking people in Hong Kong and Chinese mandarin speakers.
For example any Cantonese person I have asked will always say their language is it's own separate language.

Any Chinese person I ask will say it's a dialect of mandarin. It's somewhat mutually intelligible to native speakers with some difficulty.

It's almost like a political difference in perception between them
.

Bit of a gravedig, but anyway. Cantonese is the language of Canton. Canton is a city about 100 miles north of Hong Kong in mainland China. Nowadays called Guangzhou in English. Population bout 14,000,000.

No Chinese person would say that Cantonese is a variety of Mandarin, however a Chinese person would likely say that Cantonese is a variety of Chinese.

The main linguistic difference between HK and mainland China are that many people in HK are educated in English and Cantonese, and traditional Chinese characters. Cantonese is widely used as the first variety of Chinese . In contrast with Guangzhou where Cantonese would still be the dominant spoken language, but mandarin is used in education and on the TV etc

ilkhanid

It was mentioned previously here about the repercussions that the Hong Kong protests would have for Taiwan. As predicted the more nationalist-inclined party enjoyed a resounding victory...much to the chagrin of the Chinese government. Even their more mainland-friendly opponents had to declare that "One country, Two systems" is dead.

iamgroot

ilkhanid wrote: »

It was mentioned previously here about the repercussions that the Hong Kong protests would have for Taiwan. As predicted the more nationalist-inclined party enjoyed a resounding victory...much to the chagrin of the Chinese government. Even their more mainland-friendly opponents had to declare that "One country, Two systems" is dead.

The Nationalist Party lost the recent election

Yurt2

iamgroot wrote: »

The Nationalist Party lost the recent election

Well the DPP are a 'Taiwanese nationalist' party of sorts, even if they do don't come out hard saying it for obvious reasons.

That's what he's angling at I would suspect

iamgroot

Yurt! wrote: »

Well the DPP are a 'Taiwanese nationalist' party of sorts, even if they do don't come out hard saying it for obvious reasons.

That's what he's angling at I would suspect

KMT: 國民黨, literally means 'nationalist party'.

The DPP are the democratic progressive party.

Sure you could say that Labour have conservative policies, and then refer to them as 'the conservatives'. But that would obviously be confusing.

Yurt2

iamgroot wrote: »

KMT: 國民黨, literally means 'nationalist party'.

I know what Kuomintang means transliterated into English. The poster was referring to Taiwanese nationalism, and the DPP is clearly the home of many Taiwanese nationalists.

iamgroot

Yurt! wrote: »

I know what Kuomintang means transliterated into English. The poster was referring to Taiwanese nationalism, and the DPP is clearly the home of many Taiwanese nationalists.

Okay, so then sinn fein are pro united Ireland, so we should refer to them as 'the unionist party'?

Yurt2

iamgroot wrote: »

Okay, so then sinn fein are pro united Ireland, so we should refer to them as 'the unionist party'?

The KMT were/are Chinese nationalists and were part of the great wave of nationalist movements of the 20th century.

*Chinese* nationlism, not Taiwanese. The DPP is largely the vehicle of Taiwanese nationlists.

You know the history of the KMT right? Sun Yat Sen etc? And that there is an (ersatz) KMT on the mainland also?