Memrise provides a phrase that sounds like da yoyo liang. Is yi becoming yo here, and if so under what circumstances would this change occur? Is it just a dialect issue or standard mandarin.
4 Answers
In characters, the phrase is
Dǎ yāo yāo líng
打幺幺零
Dial 1-1-0
「一」is not yāo; rather, a different word「幺」is used. See Pronunciation of 壹 / 一 in Mandarin for the use of yāo.
It's standard mandarin. Simple rules:
- When used in telephone numbers, use yao
- In certain chess and card games, eg. mahjong, use yao
- All other circumstances except these two, use yi
These chinese webpages explain why and history of its pronunciation evolution:
"da yoyo liang" seems like a dialectal way to say 打110.
“da yoyo liang” sounds like a Shanghainese version of 打112.
I believe it is this
打110
打一一零
dǎ yāo yāo líng
(It's the police emergency phone number.)
It is very common practice in mainland China to say "yāo" in place of "yī" when pronouncing phone numbers. I've heard it's because 一 (yī) and 七 (qī) sound so similar.
I don't believe pronouncing yī as yāo is done outside of phone numbers, e.g., 2011年 would be pronounced “èr líng yī yī nián”. See https://chinese4kids.net/year-month-date-in-chinese/
It's not used when you're reading numbers normally, 我想买一百一十一个 is "wǒ xiǎng mǎi yībǎi yīshíyī gè".
When I went to Taiwan, the famous building 台北101 was pronounced by the taxi driver “Táiběi yī líng yī”, so my impression this is a mainland China custom.
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Just like reading letters as Alfa, Bravo. Yāo is the stander way to read 1 over radio in military field. For example, when counting down the launch of rocket, the speaker says San, Liang, Yao instead of San, Er, Yi.– tshDec 3, 2019 at 10:38