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" h ~ x", " ɻ ~ ʐ", "[ ɹ̩ ~ z̩]", "[ ɻ̩ ~ ʐ̩]", "[i]~[ɹ̩~ɻ̩]", "[k]~[t͡ɕ]",... What is this tilde supposed to mean? There is no explanation anywhere on this site nor on the wikipedia website on phonetic transcription and I could not find anything on any other website using a search engine. 138.246.2.9 ( talk) 18:13, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
For some reason, Wikipedia's phoneme list has /p/ as the pinyin b and /p^h/ as the pinyin p. I learned Mandarin with p as your regular English p (i.e. /p/) and b as very close to our regular English b (i.e. /b/). I get it, the Mandarin b is unaspirated and I can memorize that.
My question is: why is the Wikipedia phoneme list listing the Mandarin p as /p^h/ and the Mandarin b as a /p/ when it should be listing the Mandarin p as /p/? And maybe the Mandarin b as /p^h/? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cleverwater ( talk • contribs) 16:40, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I am a native speaker and I think p in Chinese is same sound as/p/ and b same sound as /b/? I never seen anyone pronouncing b as /p/ in my life. Am I getting something wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.19.89.103 ( talk) 12:02, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
I am studying Mandarin and finding this page too difficult to use.
The recordings of sounds are too difficult for me to use, because clicking them does not play the sound, but instead changes the page to a sound player. It is impossible to hear the sound while seeing the character and the Pinyin spelling, in relation to other sounds.
I can't follow all the technical words like "palatal" or the IPA transcriptions because, like most English speakers, I have no training in the classification of formal speech sounds or in phonetics.
Also, the Chinese characters for each sound are too small for me to see, and do not include all the characters that have the same consonant sound.
I need clear recordings, and I need them repeated along with both the Chinese and Pinyin characters clearly visible in large print, or at least a reference to this kind of tool if it already exists on the Web.
The characters I have the most trouble with as an English speaker are these:
1) xi and shi 2) ji and zhi 3) qi and chi, and I also have trouble with most dipthongs.
To those editors who would object that the information is already there and WP is not a language learning tool, I respond simply: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; there is no exclusion for teaching any subject or for being a tool for learning. David Spector ( talk) 16:24, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
A good reference is <ref> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291246853_Mandarin_Vowels_Revisited_Evidence_from_Electromagnetic_Articulography<ref> especially subsection 2.2. The authors cite sources for interpretations of two to six basic vowels for Mandarin. I would edit the page myself, but I'm not sure how to create a citation with this kind of source, e.g. whether to use the Journal or the URI.
20:45, 17 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.211.239 ( talk)
The section in question: "That is, syllables represented in pinyin as beginning ⟨ji-⟩, ⟨qi-⟩, ⟨xi-⟩, ⟨ju-⟩, ⟨qu-⟩, ⟨xu-⟩ (followed by a vowel) are taken to begin [t͡ɕj], [t͡ɕʰj], [ɕj], [t͡ɕɥ], [t͡ɕʰɥ], [ɕɥ]. The actual pronunciations are more like [t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], [ɕ], [t͡ɕʷ], [t͡ɕʰʷ], [ɕʷ]".
In other words, this statement says that the alveolo-palatals already have an inherent [ʲ] articulation that causes palatalization of the vowel, and so the palatal glide slot is not actually present. This feels incorrect to me and I disagree with this statement.
If we compare with Korean 차,자 /tɕ(ʰ)a/ and Japanese ちゃ,チャ /tɕa/, we can see that neither has an inherent palatalization of the vowel and Standard Chinese /t͡ɕjʰa/ does not sound the same as the aforementioned Korean and Japanese syllables (with regards to the palatalization of the vowel). In Cantonese, the /s/ is often very retracted (barring speakers that have a rounding-conditioned palatalization), giving its affricates /ts tsʰ/ a quality that is more akin to [tɕ(ʰ)a] of Japanese and Korean. I can physically articulate both the presence and absence of a palatalization of the vowel ʲV with this consonant quality, so in my opinion this statement needs to be amended. Wandering Maiden ( talk) 16:24, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
The section "Tone sandhi / Second and fourth tone change" uses the term "conflicting context". I had a look at reference [43] (Xu, Yi (1993). Contextual tonal variation in Mandarin Chinese) and I think I understand what "conflicting context" means. However at this part of the section I feel it's counterproductive to use it, as it's not a standard term; it confuses more than it helps. One can describe this sandhi by simply listing the cases in which it occurs; so it is possible to not mention "conflicting context".
So I suggest changing this somehow. Maybe it's best to go simply. How about this suggestion as an improvement?
"In conversational speech, for the rising tone (tone 2) and falling tone (tone 4), in some situations (depending on which tones are used immediately before and after), the pitch contours will change."
The wording is a bit clumsy and has room for improvement, but I think it's better than the current version which mentions "conflicting context" without explaining it.
Still, maybe it would also be good to explain the idea of "conflicting context". Perhaps a short explanation of conflicting context vs non-conflicting context afterwards may be helpful too. Or else a link to an article about it?
I do not feel qualified to do this second change (explanation of the term), but the first change I suggested above is quite simple, and I'm tempted to go ahead and do it. I may actually do that after a reasonable wait - maybe a week or so. GoPlayerJuggler ( talk) 16:07, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
This seems odd. Phonological analyses of a language are not supposed to be motivated and justified by one or several transliteration systems that happen to be used for the language, but by phonological theories, analytical priorities and empirical facts about the language (as spoken). The analyses should be neither more nor less correct depending on how a language is spelt and whether it has a standard spelling at all. I'm sure that the linguists who proposed the analyses of Mandarin vowels in the article didn't motivate them as being 'based' on transliteration systems, because that would make them appear non-serious. This sounds more as if a Wikipedia editor has speculated that the linguists may have been influenced by these spelling systems, which would be original research.
As a matter of fact, neither of the analyses matches either spelling system very closely: the five vowel phonemes (/a/, /ə/, /i/, /y/, /u/) in the first analysis don't correspond 1-to-1 to the six vowel signs used in Pinyin (a, e, i, o, u, ü), and the two vowels (/a/, /ə/) in the second analysis don't correspond 1-to-1 to the vowel signs used in Bopomofo (three signs for full monophthongs ㄞ, ㄝ, ㄡ, three semivocalic or fully vocalic signs ㄧ, ㄨ, ㄩ, plus four unique diphthong signs ㄠ, ㄞ, ㄟ, ㄡ). The only parallelism I see is that Bopomofo spells semivowels and the corresponding full vowels in the same way (ㄧ, ㄨ, ㄩ), and they are indeed treated as underlyingly the same in the second analysis. However, that's hardly enough to claim that the analysis is 'based' on Bopomofo. 87.126.21.225 ( talk) 21:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
" h ~ x", " ɻ ~ ʐ", "[ ɹ̩ ~ z̩]", "[ ɻ̩ ~ ʐ̩]", "[i]~[ɹ̩~ɻ̩]", "[k]~[t͡ɕ]",... What is this tilde supposed to mean? There is no explanation anywhere on this site nor on the wikipedia website on phonetic transcription and I could not find anything on any other website using a search engine. 138.246.2.9 ( talk) 18:13, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
For some reason, Wikipedia's phoneme list has /p/ as the pinyin b and /p^h/ as the pinyin p. I learned Mandarin with p as your regular English p (i.e. /p/) and b as very close to our regular English b (i.e. /b/). I get it, the Mandarin b is unaspirated and I can memorize that.
My question is: why is the Wikipedia phoneme list listing the Mandarin p as /p^h/ and the Mandarin b as a /p/ when it should be listing the Mandarin p as /p/? And maybe the Mandarin b as /p^h/? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cleverwater ( talk • contribs) 16:40, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I am a native speaker and I think p in Chinese is same sound as/p/ and b same sound as /b/? I never seen anyone pronouncing b as /p/ in my life. Am I getting something wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.19.89.103 ( talk) 12:02, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
I am studying Mandarin and finding this page too difficult to use.
The recordings of sounds are too difficult for me to use, because clicking them does not play the sound, but instead changes the page to a sound player. It is impossible to hear the sound while seeing the character and the Pinyin spelling, in relation to other sounds.
I can't follow all the technical words like "palatal" or the IPA transcriptions because, like most English speakers, I have no training in the classification of formal speech sounds or in phonetics.
Also, the Chinese characters for each sound are too small for me to see, and do not include all the characters that have the same consonant sound.
I need clear recordings, and I need them repeated along with both the Chinese and Pinyin characters clearly visible in large print, or at least a reference to this kind of tool if it already exists on the Web.
The characters I have the most trouble with as an English speaker are these:
1) xi and shi 2) ji and zhi 3) qi and chi, and I also have trouble with most dipthongs.
To those editors who would object that the information is already there and WP is not a language learning tool, I respond simply: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; there is no exclusion for teaching any subject or for being a tool for learning. David Spector ( talk) 16:24, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
A good reference is <ref> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291246853_Mandarin_Vowels_Revisited_Evidence_from_Electromagnetic_Articulography<ref> especially subsection 2.2. The authors cite sources for interpretations of two to six basic vowels for Mandarin. I would edit the page myself, but I'm not sure how to create a citation with this kind of source, e.g. whether to use the Journal or the URI.
20:45, 17 December 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.211.239 ( talk)
The section in question: "That is, syllables represented in pinyin as beginning ⟨ji-⟩, ⟨qi-⟩, ⟨xi-⟩, ⟨ju-⟩, ⟨qu-⟩, ⟨xu-⟩ (followed by a vowel) are taken to begin [t͡ɕj], [t͡ɕʰj], [ɕj], [t͡ɕɥ], [t͡ɕʰɥ], [ɕɥ]. The actual pronunciations are more like [t͡ɕ], [t͡ɕʰ], [ɕ], [t͡ɕʷ], [t͡ɕʰʷ], [ɕʷ]".
In other words, this statement says that the alveolo-palatals already have an inherent [ʲ] articulation that causes palatalization of the vowel, and so the palatal glide slot is not actually present. This feels incorrect to me and I disagree with this statement.
If we compare with Korean 차,자 /tɕ(ʰ)a/ and Japanese ちゃ,チャ /tɕa/, we can see that neither has an inherent palatalization of the vowel and Standard Chinese /t͡ɕjʰa/ does not sound the same as the aforementioned Korean and Japanese syllables (with regards to the palatalization of the vowel). In Cantonese, the /s/ is often very retracted (barring speakers that have a rounding-conditioned palatalization), giving its affricates /ts tsʰ/ a quality that is more akin to [tɕ(ʰ)a] of Japanese and Korean. I can physically articulate both the presence and absence of a palatalization of the vowel ʲV with this consonant quality, so in my opinion this statement needs to be amended. Wandering Maiden ( talk) 16:24, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
The section "Tone sandhi / Second and fourth tone change" uses the term "conflicting context". I had a look at reference [43] (Xu, Yi (1993). Contextual tonal variation in Mandarin Chinese) and I think I understand what "conflicting context" means. However at this part of the section I feel it's counterproductive to use it, as it's not a standard term; it confuses more than it helps. One can describe this sandhi by simply listing the cases in which it occurs; so it is possible to not mention "conflicting context".
So I suggest changing this somehow. Maybe it's best to go simply. How about this suggestion as an improvement?
"In conversational speech, for the rising tone (tone 2) and falling tone (tone 4), in some situations (depending on which tones are used immediately before and after), the pitch contours will change."
The wording is a bit clumsy and has room for improvement, but I think it's better than the current version which mentions "conflicting context" without explaining it.
Still, maybe it would also be good to explain the idea of "conflicting context". Perhaps a short explanation of conflicting context vs non-conflicting context afterwards may be helpful too. Or else a link to an article about it?
I do not feel qualified to do this second change (explanation of the term), but the first change I suggested above is quite simple, and I'm tempted to go ahead and do it. I may actually do that after a reasonable wait - maybe a week or so. GoPlayerJuggler ( talk) 16:07, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
This seems odd. Phonological analyses of a language are not supposed to be motivated and justified by one or several transliteration systems that happen to be used for the language, but by phonological theories, analytical priorities and empirical facts about the language (as spoken). The analyses should be neither more nor less correct depending on how a language is spelt and whether it has a standard spelling at all. I'm sure that the linguists who proposed the analyses of Mandarin vowels in the article didn't motivate them as being 'based' on transliteration systems, because that would make them appear non-serious. This sounds more as if a Wikipedia editor has speculated that the linguists may have been influenced by these spelling systems, which would be original research.
As a matter of fact, neither of the analyses matches either spelling system very closely: the five vowel phonemes (/a/, /ə/, /i/, /y/, /u/) in the first analysis don't correspond 1-to-1 to the six vowel signs used in Pinyin (a, e, i, o, u, ü), and the two vowels (/a/, /ə/) in the second analysis don't correspond 1-to-1 to the vowel signs used in Bopomofo (three signs for full monophthongs ㄞ, ㄝ, ㄡ, three semivocalic or fully vocalic signs ㄧ, ㄨ, ㄩ, plus four unique diphthong signs ㄠ, ㄞ, ㄟ, ㄡ). The only parallelism I see is that Bopomofo spells semivowels and the corresponding full vowels in the same way (ㄧ, ㄨ, ㄩ), and they are indeed treated as underlyingly the same in the second analysis. However, that's hardly enough to claim that the analysis is 'based' on Bopomofo. 87.126.21.225 ( talk) 21:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)