I'm sorry you have trouble pronouncing my name.

[SpencerH]

I think the most difficult part of asian names for many westerners is using the family name first then the given name (I say asian, but I'm not sure if all asian cultures do so). It can get even more confusing when the name gets switched around by news people etc.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Something similar exists for Chinese transliteration as well. An older system, Wade-Giles, transliterates the word for "China" as "Chung Kuo", whereas the later Pinyin system transliterates it as "Zhong Guo". The older system used apostrophes regularly to distinguish between aspirated consonants and unaspirated consonants, so the "b" sound was written as a "p", and the "p" sound was written as "p' ".

A further layer of politics entered this as well. Asia, like Africa and South America, has historically had a large number of near-poverty societies, and so Communist governments tended to find more purchase in these regions. One of the reforms of the Chinese Communist government was to adopt Pinyin entirely and simplify the script. They didn't invent this - both advances had been proposed for some time before they took power. But the moment the Communists recommended doing it, the issue went beyond mere linguistics and became heavily politicized.

There are still Chinese-language newspapers and Chinese-language schools in the U.S. that refuse to use the simplified script, out of a refusal to do what the Communists are doing. It caused my brother a fair bit of irritation when he was trying to learn Chinese here - the only schools near him were stridently anti-mainland and required all students to study the traditional, complicated characters.

A few years back, they did agree finally on the "direction" of script in U.S. Chinese language papers. They would standardize them as left-to-right, instead of right-to-left, or up-to-down. Even this industrial agreement took some major discussion to achieve, because the Communists implemented left-to-right and several papers saw it as a political concession.

[onodera]

So how do I pronounce the word "China" in Mandarin? Chung Kuo or Zhong Guo?

[Grandpa Troll]

So how do I pronounce the word "China" in Mandarin? Chung Kuo or Zhong Guo?

Im not an expert but from my limited Chinese Temple Boxing (Teik Soo Chang) I have to say Zhong Guo

But I will help research

I know some Asian traditions but all would be based upon Dojo in Japan or DoJang for Korean

[Grandpa Troll]

So how do I pronounce the word "China" in Mandarin? Chung Kuo or Zhong Guo?

From China Guru: The standard language of China is called ...

The standard language of China is called "putonghua" (standard speach). This language is Mandarin to us. The language of Beijing, beijinghua, which is a regional Chinese dialect is not spelled in any way what so ever. The only two languages of China that have romanized spelling are Putonghua and Guangdonghua (Cantonese) from Hongkong, not including the phonetic systems of Taiwan. Putonghua is based on the language of North China, where it is spoken with slight variations from location to location, sometimes only within a 10 mile radiace you will find dialectiacal variances. Take for instance the difference between beijinghua and tianjinhua from Tianjin only 100 km from Beijing. They are very different, but both are Northern Chinese dialects. (Consider differences between the way people in NY, Chicago, and Boston all speak the same language. This is a pronunciation difference rather than a dialect difference but it is a good example.)

In standard Mandarin, putonghua, Beijing is spelled just like you see it; bei jing (north capitol - two characters), China is spelled; zhong guo (center country - two characters). This is using the pinyin system of sounding out Mandarin for children to learn the pronunciation of each character since characters are pictographs and not words.

I found it here:

http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/china-info/index.pl?page=2;read=3251

Hope it helps my friend

[onodera]

But do I pronounce it that way too? Warsaw is written Warszawa in Polish, but I should pronounce it "Vuhr-SHUH-vuh".
Is Zhong Guo pronounced "Zhong Goo-OH", with "Zh" as "S" in "measure"?

[Alinestra Covelia]

So how do I pronounce the word "China" in Mandarin? Chung Kuo or Zhong Guo?

Both spellings essentially describe the same sound, but using different transliteration techniques. Neither spelling perfectly replicates Chinese sounds, but if I absolutely had to choose, I think the latter one is a little closer to the actual sound a Mandarin Chinese speaker would say.

[Alinestra Covelia]

But do I pronounce it that way too? Warsaw is written Warszawa in Polish, but I should pronounce it "Vuhr-SHUH-vuh".
Is Zhong Guo pronounced "Zhong Goo-OH", with "Zh" as "S" in "measure"?

The "Zh" sound is similar to the "S" in measure, but with more of a "D" sound in front. It's a mixture of a "J" or "D" sound and the "S" you mention.

The "-ong" ending is pretty much what you'd expect from western script. The tone is first tone, so it's high and level.

The "Guo" part is actually pretty similar to the UK pronunciation of the word "gore". There is a bit of a "gwoh" sound. The tone for this is second, so it starts off low and ends up high. Like when you're asking a question, "Who, me?" the word "me?" is exactly the right tone.

[Grandpa Troll]

Both spellings essentially describe the same sound, but using different transliteration techniques. Neither spelling perfectly replicates Chinese sounds, but if I absolutely had to choose, I think the latter one is a little closer to the actual sound a Mandarin Chinese speaker would say.

Thanks AC

because the Chinese-Japanese-Korean I learned, was pronounced by a North American, spelled in English so although I came to know what a word means in a certain language, I could not write it in that language or do it justice

For the record, i also slaughter Deutche-Greek-Honduran (espanol)

Im kinda an equal opportunity word slaughterer

[Q Classic]

I think the most difficult part of asian names for many westerners is using the family name first then the given name (I say asian, but I'm not sure if all asian cultures do so). It can get even more confusing when the name gets switched around by news people etc.

I'd only think that's a problem when going overseas or dealing with someone from overseas who hasn't had many dealings with the West. It's very common practice these days to Westernize the order of your name when dealing with the gwailo.

Besides, I thought Hungarians did it the East Asian way, too.

That said, I know in some parts of India, Thailand, Laos, and the Philippines, they have the Given name - Family name order, while Vietnam has the East Asian name order.

[Kuciwalker]

Those rules are at least somewhat regular, which is more than I can say about French, English, or Welsh orthography.

So? That still doesn't make them not **** if they generate garbage no native speaker could ever figure out how to pronounce.

[Q Classic]

So? That still doesn't make them not **** if they generate garbage no native speaker could ever figure out how to pronounce.

The notion is to get them into the ballpark, and honestly, most romanization rules do that.

After all, you might not get it right, but saying Beijing, Zhong Guo, Nippon, Tokyo, Seoul, or Daehanminguk in the standard American dialect gets you understood, even if you might be corrected.

Names, unfortunately, don't always get romanized by the same rules, which is where the problem comes in.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Thanks AC

No problem, Gramps! You know I got your back in all things, including languages and culture.

[...]

Im kinda an equal opportunity word slaughterer

Remember that even "slaughter" has a bit of "laughter" in it.

[Q Classic]

Remember that even "slaughter" has a bit of "laughter" in it.

A correction, dear. It's almost all laughter.

[Kuciwalker]

Names, unfortunately, don't always get romanized by the same rules, which is where the problem comes in.

Thus my complaint...