free china and the language good chinese tranlation links
(result of cultural revolution, *what culture?*))
the roman/ping/ying/spelling is a crazy way to do chinese, look we used
to say peking, now we spell beijing,,, but we say bay-zshing it is
really pronounced .bay. which is ok but the last part is pronounce .j.
as in .jet. and .ing. therefore "jing" like jingle bells. does anyone
know what china used before colonialism and english/language
integration, for phonetics, they do have a wonderful language, well
thats another story to because they simplified/destroyed/altered
it..... oh well let me get off my high horse.
a lighter not any good translation sites here are some?
www, babel sucks way to general
http://www.mandarintools.com/chardict.html
http://qi-journal.com/culture.asp?-t...sion%20utility
http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html
http://www.lexiconer.com/ecbig5.php?txtinputenglish=
http://www.zhongwen.com/
http://www.mandarintools.com/
http://www.yellowbridge.com/language/worddict.html
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktio...e_Pinyin_index
http://www.pinyin.info/index.html
http://chinese.dictionary.yahoo.com/

"Peking" is Wade-Giles system, Beijing is Standard Pinyin system.

Wades-Giles sometimes provide a more accurate pronunciation guide to a
foreign trying to pronounce Chinese, but spelling-wise it is duanting to
figure it, like 'Tsim Sha Tsui" - one has to figure out how to prounce 'Ts';
the Pinyin system tends to do away with a lot of the subtler nuances but
gives a more standard pronunciation, whether it is phoentically 'zh' or 'j'.
It is accepted that the mandarin dialect of Bejing as the standard mandarin,
so the phonetic sound is closer to 'J'. We are from the south, and as
Mydnight once pointed out, the northers and southerners have different
phonetic sounds for mandarin, we tend to pronounce it as 'ZH'.

The Chinese have a phonetic system before the arrival of Pinyin in the 1970s
(I think it was 1973, I remembered one year we learnt the old system, the
next we had to start again with the pinyin system), it was more complex
system, but attuned to subtle nunaces.

Danny

"sherdwen" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> free china and the language good chinese tranlation links
> (result of cultural revolution, *what culture?*))
> the roman/ping/ying/spelling is a crazy way to do chinese, look we used
> to say peking, now we spell beijing,,, but we say bay-zshing it is
> really pronounced .bay. which is ok but the last part is pronounce .j.
> as in .jet. and .ing. therefore "jing" like jingle bells. does anyone
> know what china used before colonialism and english/language
> integration, for phonetics, they do have a wonderful language, well
> thats another story to because they simplified/destroyed/altered
> it..... oh well let me get off my high horse.
> a lighter not any good translation sites here are some?
> www, babel sucks way to general
> http://www.mandarintools.com/chardict.html
> http://qi-journal.com/culture.asp?-t...sion%20utility
> http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html
> http://www.lexiconer.com/ecbig5.php?txtinputenglish=
> http://www.zhongwen.com/
> http://www.mandarintools.com/
> http://www.yellowbridge.com/language/worddict.html
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktio...e_Pinyin_index
> http://www.pinyin.info/index.html
> http://chinese.dictionary.yahoo.com/
>

The sites I use are Babelfish, Mandarintools, Zhongwen. The one I use
quite a bit is Unicode.org. You'll need some software to spit out the
4 digit hex codes. But it does give additional textual uses of the
character. I frequent TaoBao and Ebay using Google translation and
when I see something interesting in English I'll look at it in the
Chinese and strip off the Unicode. You'll see the occasional blah-blah
tea reprocessing factory where I strip the Unicode and save with the
picture. NTFS on Windows 2000 doesn't have any trouble saving the
Unicode as part of the file name. I'm up to about ten puerh factories
with the Chinese and English equivalents with the picture of a wrapper.

Jim

sherdwen wrote:
> free china and the language good chinese tranlation links
> (result of cultural revolution, *what culture?*))
> the roman/ping/ying/spelling is a crazy way to do chinese, look we used
> to say peking, now we spell beijing,,, but we say bay-zshing it is
> really pronounced .bay. which is ok but the last part is pronounce .j.
> as in .jet. and .ing. therefore "jing" like jingle bells. does anyone
> know what china used before colonialism and english/language
> integration, for phonetics, they do have a wonderful language, well
> thats another story to because they simplified/destroyed/altered
> it..... oh well let me get off my high horse.
> a lighter not any good translation sites here are some?
> www, babel sucks way to general
> http://www.mandarintools.com/chardict.html
> http://qi-journal.com/culture.asp?-t...sion%20utility
> http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html
> http://www.lexiconer.com/ecbig5.php?txtinputenglish=
> http://www.zhongwen.com/
> http://www.mandarintools.com/
> http://www.yellowbridge.com/language/worddict.html
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktio...e_Pinyin_index
> http://www.pinyin.info/index.html
> http://chinese.dictionary.yahoo.com/

> "Peking" is Wade-Giles system, Beijing is Standard Pinyin system.

sorry but it is not Wade-Giles. Wade-Giles is for the pronunciation in
Mandarin and the name of the capital in this transliteration system is
"Pei-ching". The word "Peking" used in English derives from some southern
dialect (Fukienese or Cantonese) that preserve the velar "ki", not existing
in Mandarin.

> Wades-Giles sometimes provide a more accurate pronunciation guide to a
> foreign trying to pronounce Chinese, but spelling-wise it is duanting to
> figure it, like 'Tsim Sha Tsui" - one has to figure out how to prounce
'Ts';
> the Pinyin system tends to do away with a lot of the subtler nuances but
> gives a more standard pronunciation, whether it is phoentically 'zh' or
'j'.

I agree that Wade-Giles has a more immediate rading for a foreigner, but the
example quoted ('Tsim Sha Tsui") again is not Wade-Giles.

> It is accepted that the mandarin dialect of Bejing as the standard
mandarin,
> so the phonetic sound is closer to 'J'. We are from the south, and as
> Mydnight once pointed out, the northers and southerners have different
> phonetic sounds for mandarin, we tend to pronounce it as 'ZH'.
>
> The Chinese have a phonetic system before the arrival of Pinyin in the
1970s
> (I think it was 1973, I remembered one year we learnt the old system, the
> next we had to start again with the pinyin system), it was more complex
> system, but attuned to subtle nunaces.

Pinyin was approved by the autorities in 1958 and since then teached at
school and adopted in the transliteration of printed matters titles,
personal names and so on. With the cultural revolution this first
experimantal fase came to an end. It was indeed only at the beginning of the
70s and the reinstauration of diplomatic relations that Pinyin was boosted
again. Finally in 1979 a resolution of ONU estabilshed Pinyin as the
standard translitaration system for Chinese names.
Pinyin reals suck from the point of view of sounds' description, it doesn't
show clearly the realtions between some of them (it is difficult to
understand that "hui" and "wei" were basically the same sound, one aspirated
and the other not) and it mutilated some sounds of old Beijinghua (non
distinction between "tENG" and "fENG"; no more "*yai" in "*Xuanyai"). In
anycase, once you have learnt how to use it, it becames a very efficent
method to fix the pronunciation of Chinese characters, and, most important,
whether you like it or not, it is now the standard adopted by almost
everyone.

Livio

Fantastic Livio,

You've explained it so much better than I can!

Danny


"Livio Zanini" > wrote in message
...
>> "Peking" is Wade-Giles system, Beijing is Standard Pinyin system.
>
> sorry but it is not Wade-Giles. Wade-Giles is for the pronunciation in
> Mandarin and the name of the capital in this transliteration system is
> "Pei-ching". The word "Peking" used in English derives from some southern
> dialect (Fukienese or Cantonese) that preserve the velar "ki", not
> existing
> in Mandarin.
>
>> Wades-Giles sometimes provide a more accurate pronunciation guide to a
>> foreign trying to pronounce Chinese, but spelling-wise it is duanting to
>> figure it, like 'Tsim Sha Tsui" - one has to figure out how to prounce
> 'Ts';
>> the Pinyin system tends to do away with a lot of the subtler nuances but
>> gives a more standard pronunciation, whether it is phoentically 'zh' or
> 'j'.
>
> I agree that Wade-Giles has a more immediate rading for a foreigner, but
> the
> example quoted ('Tsim Sha Tsui") again is not Wade-Giles.
>
>> It is accepted that the mandarin dialect of Bejing as the standard
> mandarin,
>> so the phonetic sound is closer to 'J'. We are from the south, and as
>> Mydnight once pointed out, the northers and southerners have different
>> phonetic sounds for mandarin, we tend to pronounce it as 'ZH'.
>>
>> The Chinese have a phonetic system before the arrival of Pinyin in the
> 1970s
>> (I think it was 1973, I remembered one year we learnt the old system, the
>> next we had to start again with the pinyin system), it was more complex
>> system, but attuned to subtle nunaces.
>
> Pinyin was approved by the autorities in 1958 and since then teached at
> school and adopted in the transliteration of printed matters titles,
> personal names and so on. With the cultural revolution this first
> experimantal fase came to an end. It was indeed only at the beginning of
> the
> 70s and the reinstauration of diplomatic relations that Pinyin was boosted
> again. Finally in 1979 a resolution of ONU estabilshed Pinyin as the
> standard translitaration system for Chinese names.
> Pinyin reals suck from the point of view of sounds' description, it
> doesn't
> show clearly the realtions between some of them (it is difficult to
> understand that "hui" and "wei" were basically the same sound, one
> aspirated
> and the other not) and it mutilated some sounds of old Beijinghua (non
> distinction between "tENG" and "fENG"; no more "*yai" in "*Xuanyai"). In
> anycase, once you have learnt how to use it, it becames a very efficent
> method to fix the pronunciation of Chinese characters, and, most
> important,
> whether you like it or not, it is now the standard adopted by almost
> everyone.
>
> Livio
>
>