15
Systems designed to represent pronunciation and to be practical at the same time don't have a 1:1 mapping between spoken sounds and written symbols. Or in other words, each sound can be represented using many symbols, or perhaps more commonly, each symbol is used to represent more than one sound. There are countless examples of this in other languages, of ...
12
The OP is asking how to type characters, using a pinyin IME, when those characters have a ü in their pinyin spelling. For example, how do you type 绿=lü? This is different than asking how to actually type the letter ü. The answer is to type a v. To follow the example, change to the pinyin IME, type lv and select 绿.
12
Dictionaries, in general, will not incorporate tone sandhi rules into their pronunciations (of which Mandarin has quite a few)
Wikipedia says the following:
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin features several sandhi tone rules.
When there are two 3rd tones in a row, the first one becomes 2nd tone,
and the second one becomes a half-3rd tone. E.g. 你好 (nǐ + hǎo = ní
...
11
The correct one should be bu2 zai4 hu. Unless there is an emphasis for "NOT" CARE, a 4th tone bu4 is then used, but I rarely hear that as a native speaker.
Let's review the tone change rule for 不，
A second tone bu2 is used only when the tone of next character is a 4th tone, i.e. bu2 shi4.
A forth tone bu4 is used if the tone of next character is 1st, 2nd ...
10
You can find the explanation in page for Pinyin on wikipedia:
Note on y and w
y and w are equivalent to the semivowel medials i, u, and ü (see below). They are spelled differently when there is no initial consonant in order to mark a new syllable: fanguan is fan-guan, while fangwan is fang-wan (and equivalent to fang-uan). With this convention, an ...
10
In the (very) old days, there was a system called 反切 (in English) where two characters were used, one for initial, one for the rhyme (vowel[s] + final), followed by 切 to indicate it was a phonetic notation. For instance, 東 could be represented as 德紅切.
Edit #2
I thought I should insert an example from the canon of Chinese dictionaries, 康熙字典. Here's page 1 -- ...
10
It seems that Pinyin does this to conform to a former phonetic transcription system 注音符号, which drops u (ㄨ) before o (ㄛ) after b p m f.
注音符号 was originally designed to reflect some old (perhaps not even real) phonetic rules and symbols like uo (ㄨㄛ) uan (ㄨㄢ) were used. However, in most Chinese dialects there's no contrast between rounded and unrounded vowels ...
10
From wiki: the spelling "Taipei" derives from the Wade–Giles romanization T'ai-pei. "Taibei" is pinyin, which iOS supports as an input method.
Wade-Giles used to be the standard method of romanization so it shows up in a lot of older Chinese names like "Chiang Ching-kuo".
Pinyin has its own disadvantages, especially when spoken by English speakers. ...
10
/v/ is not an initial found in MSM.
The initial /v/, though, is often found in Northern Mandarin and its branches. In fact, it can still be found, even, in distant branches like Sichuanese.
If you ever saw the 马蜂窝 commercial that aired, ever single night, during the World Cup, you'd certainly notice that 唐僧's "为" is very /v/'d.
You can also refer ...
10
Under the section Pronunciation of initials for the pinyin page on Wikipedia there is the following:
Note on y and w
Y and w are equivalent to the semivowel medials i, u, and ü (see below). They are spelled differently when there is no initial consonant in order to mark a new syllable: fanguan is fan-guan, while fangwan is fang-wan (and ...
9
There are several libraries for converting Chinese characters to pinyin. If you are comfortable with programming languages (which you probably are if you are asking for an API), your choice will depend on the programming languages you know, the quality of the library and the licence under which it is available. If you need a user interface, you should ...
8
From Wikipedia, before Hanyu Pinyin was introduced, the PRC Chinese learnt Bopomofo or 注音符號 [Zhùyīn fúhào]. It comprises of 37 characters (注音) and four tone marks (符號).
注音 consists of consonants, rhymes and medial (e.g. ㄅ,ㄆ,ㄇ,ㄈ)
符號 is similar to the four tones in Pinyin except there is no marking
for the first tone (ˊ,ˇ,ˋ)
An example: 大 (ㄉㄚˋ, dà) where ㄉ ...
8
I wrote the PinyinTones IME a couple of years ago to do exactly what the OP was asking about:
https://www.pinyintones.com/
PinyinTones a Windows IME that outputs Pinyin with tone marks, rather than Chinese characters. Type 1, 2, 3, or 4 after each syllable to add a tone mark -- just as people have been entering Pinyin since the days of ASCII characters.
...
8
nvren
'v' replaces 'ü' in Chinese input.
7
Pinyin was designed primarily as a writing system for Chinese speakers to use, and to help children who speak other dialects to learn Mandarin. As such, making it easy for foreigners was not a particular priority.
In any case, different languages use the Roman letters differently, so what would be obvious choice? For example, in different languages J can ...
7
There is no radical, but the left part of 那 can be
冄 rǎn (the same as 冉)
U+5184
Seal Script
That's because in the seal script, 那 is written as
The left part is 冄, and the right part (radical) is 邑. So in 說文解字, it is described as
从邑，冄聲。
But it is better not to call 冄 a "radical", because modern dictionaries and older dictionaries haven't ...
7
All the consonants in the first group are bilabials (articulated with the two lips).
The reason can't be phonemic, since there are no such Pinyin syllables *do, *so, *lo etc. -- as you correctly note Pinyin could be simplified by replacing all -uo syllables with -o.
I expect the reason for the spelling is perceptual -- from the perspective of phonetics, ...
7
In standard Mandarin, the pinyin h is pronounced as [x] in IPA, like ch in Scottish English loch -- yes, you're right that there's a tiny g, because [x] is a velar consonant. However, in south China, many simply say [h], although some natural assimilation may happen. For instance, for those speakers, pinyin ha is [ha] while pinyin he becomes [xɤ] (if you get ...
7
Pinyin is never an established written language. We have a standard, 《汉语拼音正词法基本规则》, but no one actually bothered to learn it. In short, it treats pinyin as if it is a romanized language. You follow what's correct in English. However, 成语 is so special that it has individual chapters for it:
结构上可以分为两个双音节的，中间加连接号。 例如： fēnɡpínɡ-lànɡjìnɡ（风平浪静） àizēnɡ-fēnmínɡ（...
7
As pinyin doesn't use the letter v, then words containing the u with umlaut can be written with v key, then combined with the number keys to get different tones.
For example:
v+1 = ǖ
v+2 = ǘ
v+3 = ǚ
v+4 = ǜ
v+5 = ü
7
illusional romance
梦幻：梦是睡觉时的妄想，幻是魔术师的表演。二个都是虚假的。
情缘：情通常指男女爱情，缘是缘分(the fate, the lot, the second cause)。
补充：
'梦幻' also means '美好的'(extraordinary, too good to be true)。
For example: 梦幻音乐。 It means wonderful music instead of fake music.
So, it depends on the whole story.
'梦幻情缘' may be a beautiful love when the story is real and good.
7
The Phonology of Standard Chinese by San Duanmu (端木三) has a list of the 15 most common syllables, followed by the number of different characters pronounced that way, not including tones.
yi (106)，ji (93), yu (90),
fu (73),
zhi (72),
li (71),
qi (66),
yuan (64),
xi (64),
jian (61),
shi (58),
wu (55),
wei (53),
ju (51), pi (51）
Tones distribution should be ...
7
There are several cases in Mandarin of multiple sounds sharing the same symbols in Pinyin, such as -uan as you've noticed, as well as -i which has multiple sounds associated with it. In the case of -uan, this final behaves differently when prefaced with the initials y-, j-, q-, and x-. As a general rule, -u, -ue, -uan, and -un behave differently when ...
6
In IPA transcriptions of Chinese, ying is usually written as: [iŋ]. This is exactly like yin, except with an "ng" sound. However, as you noticed, some people pronounce it a little differently. This paper (page 9) transcribes the alternate pronunciation as [iɘŋ]. Wouldn't really call it an "o" sound, but the vowel is different than that of the yin.
6
It's Mandarin transliteration by Portuguese Jesuit Fr. Inácio da Costa (17th century).
Partial text:
“大学之道，在明明德，在亲民，在止于至善”
Ta hio chi dao, cai min min te, cai cin min, cai chi yu chi xen
6
The 训读 (this jargon comes from Japanese) phenomenon is rare in Chinese, but it does exist, e.g. 廿 may be pronounced as èr shí (二十), 圕 as tú shū guǎn (图书馆), 哩 as yīng lǐ (英里). Doesn't that happen in English? Many people pronounce "etc." as "and so on", "i.e." as "that is", "e.g." as "for example". Traditionally, the function of 训读 in Chinese is to make ...
6
Zhuyin is commonly encountered in Taiwan and Taiwan-centric overseas communities. Not sure about its prevalence in other overseas communities a la Singapore, but I've found zhuyin easier to use with vertical text Chinese as is printed commonly in Taiwan and elsewhere, and suspect Zhuyin/bopomofo/bpmf would be more popular in those regions due to the better ...
6
I suggest that you shouldn't do this.
Chinese characters cannot be faithfully constructed backwards from a tone+syllable combination -- the mapping only goes one way (and even then, sometimes characters have multiple pronunciations).
For example, as you know, 馬 is generally pronounced ma3.
However, ma3 could also reference the characters 碼 (number), or 獁 (...
6
I had a student in Taiwan who was blind, so I've had a chance to work with this.
There are articles on Chinese Braille in both the English and Chinese Wikipedias if you haven't read them yet. It is a spelling (phonetic) method, not character based. Blind Chinese students are not taught regular character forms. Braille in Taiwan is basically zhuyinfuhao; ...
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