Lewis Perin wrote:
Were you there over the weekend, too?!

Yes! Wait - were you the guy in the Yunnan Sourcing t-shirt that
smelled like cooked pu'er?

Just kidding - I was there on Friday. I think I may go back again over
lunch this week.

Alex C. - grass script is my favorite too.

I agree with this - apostrophes are absolutely PRC standard, and it's
wise not to suggest otherwise, given the number of learners that read
here. Take a trip through the Beijing subway, there's more apostrophes
than you could shake a stick at.

Alex wrote:
wrote:
Actually we seldom - never - use the Apostrophes between two linked
characters, I'm not sure who invented this method, it is however useful
to the westerner in learning Chinese. We use the hyphen at most
times...pu-er, xi-an etc

That is totally wrong. Please don't teach people that. Look in any
Chinese (not Chinese-English) dictionary with pinyin. You will see no
hyphens and many apostrophes. This is not something that I made up or
personally prefer - it's the government standard in the PRC and
Singapore, and it's how Chinese is taught to foreigners in universities
inside and outside of China. Incidentally, it's also how Chinese is
taught to Chinese elementary school students.

The most useful thing for a Westerner learning Chinese is careful
adherence to an established and comprehensive system. Don't go
changing things because you think it will be convenient for us - it's
just confusing.

Hi Alex,

I checked with my friends and you are correct, sorry for the mistake.

However, we do not use many apostrophes; the use of this arises only in
characters with compounds where the pinyins of the first and second
charatcers end in vowels.
Many dictionaries do not provide the apostrophe as the pinyins for such
characters are usually written separately.
Contrary to what you mentioned though is that Hyphens are more often
seen in dictionaries than apostrophes. Where there are four characters
entries, where the first 2 characters are associated in meaning with
the last 2 characters, such as a proverb with 2 sets of syllables
'pingfen-qiuse（平分秋色）';in the absence of notable 2 sets of
syllables, the hyphen is omitted 'yiyidaishui（一衣带水）'.
Hyphens are also used in ranking or numbering things in order
'di-shisan（第�三）';in areas where it assists in a quicker
comprehension of the term 'zhong-xiaoxue（ä¸*å°�å*¦ï¼‰; and in terms
where the characters are doubled in the AABB format
'jiajia-huhu（家家戶戶）'.


Danny

HobbesOxon wrote:
I agree with this - apostrophes are absolutely PRC standard, and it's
wise not to suggest otherwise, given the number of learners that read
here. Take a trip through the Beijing subway, there's more apostrophes
than you could shake a stick at.

I take your example as an exaggeration to make a point?

Danny

HobbesOxon wrote:
I agree with this - apostrophes are absolutely PRC standard, and it's
wise not to suggest otherwise, given the number of learners that read
here. Take a trip through the Beijing subway, there's more apostrophes
than you could shake a stick at.

I take your example as an exaggeration to make a point?

Danny

I'm not going to get in a debate over whether apostrophes or hyphens
are more common in dictionaries. I will point out, however, that the
Xiandai Hanyu Cidian (现代汉è¯*è¯�å…¸)renders 平分秋色 as
'pingfen qiuse' with no apostrophe, and 家家戶戶 as 'jiajiahuhu',
so I would respectfully submit that you are wrong there too. In fact,
the pinyin rules section, at page 1765 of my 2002 edition, contains no
rule which requires the use of a hyphen.

Just a quick note to all the Chinese people out there - this may all
seem pointlessly pedantic, but when you take the time to be systematic
about using pinyin, you are really doing a favor to those of us who are
struggling daily to learn your wonderful language.

So ... back to tea. I'm drinking some of Jing's 2003 Lao Ban Zhang
(note the final -g there). Anyone have any thoughts about this
particular tea? I think I'm going to do a side-by-side of that and the
xizi hao on Saturday.

Alex

wrote:
Alex wrote:
wrote:
Actually we seldom - never - use the Apostrophes between two linked
characters, I'm not sure who invented this method, it is however useful
to the westerner in learning Chinese. We use the hyphen at most
times...pu-er, xi-an etc

That is totally wrong. Please don't teach people that. Look in any
Chinese (not Chinese-English) dictionary with pinyin. You will see no
hyphens and many apostrophes. This is not something that I made up or
personally prefer - it's the government standard in the PRC and
Singapore, and it's how Chinese is taught to foreigners in universities
inside and outside of China. Incidentally, it's also how Chinese is
taught to Chinese elementary school students.

The most useful thing for a Westerner learning Chinese is careful
adherence to an established and comprehensive system. Don't go
changing things because you think it will be convenient for us - it's
just confusing.

Hi Alex,

I checked with my friends and you are correct, sorry for the mistake.

However, we do not use many apostrophes; the use of this arises only in
characters with compounds where the pinyins of the first and second
charatcers end in vowels.
Many dictionaries do not provide the apostrophe as the pinyins for such
characters are usually written separately.
Contrary to what you mentioned though is that Hyphens are more often
seen in dictionaries than apostrophes. Where there are four characters
entries, where the first 2 characters are associated in meaning with
the last 2 characters, such as a proverb with 2 sets of syllables
'pingfen-qiuse（平分秋色）';in the absence of notable 2 sets of
syllables, the hyphen is omitted 'yiyidaishui（一衣带水）'.
Hyphens are also used in ranking or numbering things in order
'di-shisan（第�三）';in areas where it assists in a quicker
comprehension of the term 'zhong-xiaoxue（ä¸*å°�å*¦ï¼‰; and in terms
where the characters are doubled in the AABB format
'jiajia-huhu（家家戶戶）'.


Danny

What get's me about the PinYin system even from the Chinese sites in
English is the blatant disregard for the tonals. It is the minimum for
any hope of us English speakers. I've learned that the only thing that
really counts is the character with some nearby transliteration like
PinYin syntactically correct or not.

Jim

PS Please noticed I removed the use of PinYin without tonals to make
my point ;-). I still don't understand why xi¨¨xi¨¨ means Thank You.
Shouldn't something be different?

Alex wrote:
Just a quick note to all the Chinese people out there - this may all
seem pointlessly pedantic, but when you take the time to be systematic
about using pinyin, you are really doing a favor to those of us who are
struggling daily to learn your wonderful language.

Yes Alex,

I have this book too; the omission of hyphens in this dictionary is one
point I failed to mention which I thought interesting.

The dictionary we would refer to for technicalities is the Xiandai
Hanyu Guifan Cidian (现代汉è¯*规范è¯�å…¸), published by the
Foreign Language Training and Research Press, Beijing, www.fltrp.com.

Before you submit that I am wrong, I respectfully submit that you too
check the pinyin grammar books available to you before you commit the
mistake I made.

:"P

Danny

Alex wrote:
I'm not going to get in a debate over whether apostrophes or hyphens
are more common in dictionaries. I will point out, however, that the
Xiandai Hanyu Cidian (现代汉è¯*è¯�å…¸)renders 平分秋色 as
'pingfen qiuse' with no apostrophe, and 家家戶戶 as 'jiajiahuhu',
so I would respectfully submit that you are wrong there too. In fact,
the pinyin rules section, at page 1765 of my 2002 edition, contains no
rule which requires the use of a hyphen.

Alex wrote:


So ... back to tea. I'm drinking some of Jing's 2003 Lao Ban Zhang
(note the final -g there). Anyone have any thoughts about this
particular tea? I think I'm going to do a side-by-side of that and the
xizi hao on Saturday.

Alex


Interesting.

Which type of Xizi Hao?

Danny

i know this might bore some of you and drive some of us crazy...all
this chinese/english/translating, if the language was easier i would
just learn the darn thing..

http://pinyin.info/rules/signstyles.html

this is a good link it shows different street signs, which can be
compared to tea labels or names, the whole idea is to let the unchinese
be able to read and pronouns and also use the name of the tea to
communicate and in other software it you put hyphens and apostrophies
in words and using them in data bases or entries, hah! you are looking
for trouble some problems and spread sheets dont take hypens and
apostrophies well with names..... my brothers wife uses here last name
with my brothers last name with a hyphen and it gets mixed up at places
like the doctors and schools and libraries because the software they
use is old and takes letter only.... i dont say everywhere!!!! but she
has had trouble.

LAST and most important point is that pinyin is not english and never
will be. the best system i have seen is bopomofo it only has 30-some
characters and a maximum of three characters together to form a word
,,,, i got this info from a taiwan friend....

the following can be skipped if needed....

ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ ㄉ ㄊ ㄋ ㄌ � ㄎ � � ㄑ ㄒ ㄓ ㄔ ㄕ ㄖ
ã„— ㄘ ã„™ ã„š ã„› ã„œ ã„� ã„ž ã„Ÿ ã„* ã„¡ ã„¢ ã„£ ㄤ ã„¥ ㄦ ㄧ ㄨ
ã„©


Zhuyin
Fuhao Hanyu Pinyin
(recommended)
BPMF Pinyin

here is the translations
ㄒㄧ xi ㄓ zhi ㄔ chi
ㄕ shi ㄖ ri ㄗ zi ㄘ ci ㄙ si ㄚ a ㄜ e
ã„ž ai ã„Ÿ ei ã„* ao
ㄡ ou ㄢ an ㄣ en ㄤ ang ㄦ er
1 yi ㄨ wu ㄩ yu
look at these to examples both BPMF Pinyin

again the BPMF Pinyin and here what it should be huh?????
ㄘ ci
ㄘㄚ ca ci + a cia
ㄘㄜ ce cie ci = e wow! this one checks out ok
ㄘㄨㄟ cui ci+wu+ ei ciwuei looks ugly but that are the
sounds or characters
ㄘㄨㄢ cuan ci+wu+an ciwuan