MEotW: Yànwén

The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:

• Yànwén

Is Pīnyīn the Hangul of Mandarin?

 metalslick

The Korean text “Joseongeul” and “Hangeul,” written in Hangul, the native Korean script. [source]

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The Article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” Has Been Revised

The recent revisions to the article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” have been revised, to emphasize that Pīnyīn helps Mandarin-learners to take advantage of the familiarity of the Latin alphabet, with no downside necessary:

What about the claim by some English-speaking Mandarin-learners that using Pīnyīn causes their Mandarin to sound like English? This can indeed happen if they let the Latin letters of Pīnyīn make them think of English sounds instead of the Mandarin sounds that they actually represent. In such cases, the problem is not with the Latin alphabet letters used by Pīnyīn—the Latin alphabet is used successfully to write many languages besides English, including French, Spanish, Vietnamese, etc., and it is just as capable of being used successfully to write Mandarin. As English-speaking Mandarin-learners get more familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech, they can come to get used to correctly mentally connecting Pīnyīn to correct Mandarin sounds, rather than to English sounds. Then, they can regularly and reliably use Pīnyīn to help them speak Mandarin-sounding Mandarin, just like people regularly and reliably use written French to help them speak French-sounding French.

So, the key to speaking Mandarin-sounding Mandarin is to mentally get familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech, e.g., by hearing the sounds of correct Mandarin speech a lot, by learning how to use the mouth, tongue, etc. to make Mandarin speech sounds correctly, and by practising making Mandarin speech sounds correctly. Turning to Chinese characters and avoiding the Latin letters of Pīnyīn is not the only or best way to go—if you are not familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech, then your spoken Mandarin is still going to sound off, even if you stick with Chinese characters.

So, Pīnyīn is not necessarily less effective than the hard-to-learn-and-remember characters are at helping people to speak Mandarin-sounding Mandarin. In fact, once people mentally get familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech and get used to connecting those sounds to the familiar Latin alphabet letters of Pīnyīn, Pīnyīn then allows them to leverage or take advantage of their familiarity with the Latin alphabet, such that that familiarity enables them to more easily and more confidently speak Mandarin that is more precisely correct. E.g., with Pīnyīn, no more does anyone need to be uncertain about how in the world “增加” is pronounced, or about whether it starts with a “z” sound or a “zh” sound—the Pīnyīn (“zēngjiā”) uses familiar Latin alphabet letters to literally spell out the correct Mandarin pronunciation so that it is clear and obvious!

The Article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” Has Been Revised

The article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” has been revised, with the addition of these two paragraphs addressing the issue of whether Pīnyīn unavoidably causes English-speaking Mandarin-learners’ Mandarin to sound like English:

What about the claim by some English-speaking Mandarin-learners that using Pīnyīn causes their Mandarin to sound like English? This can indeed happen if they let the Latin letters of Pīnyīn make them think of English sounds instead of the Mandarin sounds that they actually represent. In such cases, the problem is not with the Latin alphabet letters used by Pīnyīn—the Latin alphabet is used successfully to write many languages besides English, including French, Spanish, Vietnamese, etc., and it is just as capable of being used successfully to write Mandarin. As English-speaking Mandarin-learners get more familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech, they can come to get used to correctly mentally connecting Pīnyīn to correct Mandarin sounds, rather than to English sounds. Then, they can regularly and reliably use Pīnyīn to help them speak Mandarin-sounding Mandarin, just like people regularly and reliably use written French to help them speak French-sounding French.

So, the key to speaking Mandarin-sounding Mandarin is to mentally get familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech, e.g., by hearing the sounds of correct Mandarin speech a lot, by learning how to use the mouth, tongue, etc. to make Mandarin speech sounds correctly, and by practising making Mandarin speech sounds correctly. Turning to Chinese characters and avoiding the Latin letters of Pīnyīn is not the only or best way to go—if you are not familiar with the sounds of correct Mandarin speech, then your spoken Mandarin is still going to sound off, even if you stick with Chinese characters. In fact, rather than being less effective than the hard-to-learn-and-remember characters are at helping people speak Mandarin-sounding Mandarin, once people mentally work out the connections between Pīnyīn and Mandarin speech sounds, Pīnyīn can help them to more easily and more confidently speak Mandarin that is more precisely correct. E.g., with Pīnyīn, no more does anyone need to be uncertain about how in the world “增加” is pronounced, or about whether it starts with a “z” sound or a “zh” sound—the Pīnyīn (“zēngjiā”) makes the correct Mandarin pronunciation clear and obvious!

Also, scripture links have been revised to point to the latest 2018 version of the New World Translation on the WOL.

The Pīnyīn, etc. Articles Have Been Revised and Restyled

The articles I have written about Pīnyīn, characters, Mandarin speech, etc. have been revised, and their styling has been harmonized and improved so that they will render better on mobile devices:

• SPEECH is Top Priority, Not Characters
  This short article boils down what our top priority should be when it comes to learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field, and why, according to Jehovah’s organization and his Word. (Logging in to 3lines.org is required to access this article.)
• Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own
  This article is a brief overview of why it’s important for those of us in the Mandarin field to recognize that Pīnyīn is a full writing system, not just a pronunciation aid. (Logging in to 3lines.org is required to access this article.)
• Pīnyīn Was Plan A
  This extensively researched in-depth article discusses how we in the Mandarin field should view Pīnyīn. (Logging in to 3lines.org is required to access this article.)
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Articles (tiandi.info/articles)

The Article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” Has Been Revised

The article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”, available to be read on 3lines.org, has been revised. Its contents were taken from the Introductions of recent Pīnyīn web resources, and it should serve as a brief overview of why it’s important for those of us in the Mandarin field to recognize that Pīnyīn is a full writing system, not just a pronunciation aid. (The article “Pīnyīn Was Plan A” provides a more in-depth discussion of how we in the Mandarin field should view Pīnyīn.)

Here is a link to the newly posted article:

• “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”
  
  (The login information required is the same as for anywhere else on 3lines.org. If you’re already on the 3lines.org site, you can find this article in the folder Misc ▶ Articles.)

The subject of Pīnyīn and the Chinese characters may be one of the most important subjects I have ever written about, since it deals with facing the most difficult fundamental aspect of the Mandarin language, the language that is the very reason that the Mandarin field exists. This article is a distillation of months of research and analysis regarding this subject, and of decades of experience in learning and teaching Mandarin in the Mandarin field. I highly recommend that anyone in or interested in the Mandarin field read it, and that they also go on to read the more in-depth article, “Pīnyīn Was Plan A”. Please feel free to pass on the information about these articles to any Witness you know who is in or interested in the Mandarin field. (Many of the principles discussed in these articles apply to the Cantonese field as well, which is evidently consolidating on the Sidney Lau system as the romanization system of choice.)

Here is a sample of some of the new content:

Indeed, in our ministry specifically, we definitely need to understand speech and to speak understandably much more than we need to read and write.

…

Also, as a Sumerian proverb stated, “a scribe whose hand matches the mouth, he is indeed a scribe”. Pīnyīn can indeed be used to write anything that can be spoken in Modern Standard Mandarin, from the simplest expressions to the most advanced, complex, and deeply meaningful expressions, so it qualifies as a full writing system in that fundamental sense as well.

…

But, aren’t characters more meaningful than Pīnyīn? There are certainly meanings and stories behind how certain characters are written, but taken as a bewitchingly complex, independent system for directly representing meanings visually, the characters can actually be a distraction or a diversion from the Mandarin words themselves, which are already a system of representing meanings through Mandarin speech sounds. Really, a Mandarin word still means what it means, no more and no less, whether it is spoken, written in characters, or written in Pīnyīn. Shakespeare said that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, and indeed, a rose would smell as sweet whether the spoken Mandarin word for it is written as “玫瑰” or as “méigui”. Writing the word in characters does not add to its meaning, and writing it in Pīnyīn does not take away from its meaning.

…

While those who love traditional Chinese culture may dislike such a radical innovation, it can be said that such innovations are actually a sign of positive, healthy cultural development. Another example of such a radical but positive innovation was the West and China moving from always using Roman numerals and the Chinese characters for numbers to mostly using Arabic numerals. I’m sure most would agree that it’s a very good thing that we no longer have to deal with CMXXXVI÷III or 九百三十六÷三, because we can just work out 936÷3! Pīnyīn brings similar benefits as a writing system for Mandarin.

New Resource: The Article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”

The article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own” is now available to be read on 3lines.org. Its contents were taken from the Introductions of recent Pīnyīn web resources, and it should serve as a brief overview of why it’s important for those of us in the Mandarin field to recognize that Pīnyīn is a full writing system, not just a pronunciation aid. (The article “Pīnyīn Was Plan A” provides a more in-depth discussion of how we in the Mandarin field should view Pīnyīn.)

Here is a link to the newly posted article:

• “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”
  
  (The login information required is the same as for anywhere else on 3lines.org. If you’re already on the 3lines.org site, you can find this article in the folder Misc ▶ Articles.)

The subject of Pīnyīn and the Chinese characters may be one of the most important subjects I have ever written about, since it deals with facing the most difficult fundamental aspect of the Mandarin language, the language that is the very reason that the Mandarin field exists. This article is a distillation of months of research and analysis regarding this subject, and of decades of experience in learning and teaching Mandarin in the Mandarin field. I highly recommend that anyone in or interested in the Mandarin field read it, and that they also go on to read the more in-depth article, “Pīnyīn Was Plan A”. Please feel free to pass on the information about these articles to any Witness you know who is in or interested in the Mandarin field. (Many of the principles discussed in these articles apply to the Cantonese field as well, which is evidently consolidating on the Sidney Lau system as the romanization system of choice.)