Читать книгу Etiquette Guide to China - Boye Lafayette De Mente - Страница 5
ОглавлениеNotes on Pronunciation
What has traditionally been referred to as “the Chinese language” is in fact a family of ten closely related but mutually unintelligible languages that includes Cantonese, Shanghainese, Fukienese, Hokkien, Hakka, Chin Chow, and Mandarin. There are also several dozen regional dialects within these languages that are used by some of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China.
Following the takeover of China by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 it was decreed that Mandarin, the primary language of the Beijing region, was to be the country’s national language. All schools outside this region would teach it as a second language, no matter what their native dialect. As a result of this decree, younger generations of Chinese outside of the Beijing area–including Hong Kong–are generally bilingual. Visitors who would like to communicate in Chinese even on a basic level are therefore advised to study Mandarin.
It is worth noting that people in all of China’s regions have historically used the same ideograms for writing their various languages. Although pronunciation is unique to each language, the meanings of the characters are the same. This makes it possible for people to communicate with one another, no matter which dialect they may speak.
There are four basic tones in Mandarin: first tone (high-level), second tone (rising), third tone (falling-rising), and fourth tone (falling). While most of the sounds in the language are easy for English speakers to emulate, getting the tones right can be a challenge because many words are spelled and look the same but have different meanings based on how they are pronounced.
Getting the tones right requires a combination of keen hearing, imitation, and practice. This begins with knowing how the vowels and consonants are pronounced. Here is a quick guide to their Romanized versions:
VOWELS
| a | as in ah |
| ai | as in buy |
| ao | as in how |
| e | as in fur |
| ei | as in day |
| i | as in see, or, when following the consonants c, ch, r, s, sh, z, and zh, as ur |
| ian | as yen |
| ie | as in here |
| iu | as you |
| o | as awe |
| ou | as in how |
| u | as in woo |
| ü | as urr |
| ui | as way |
| uo | as war |
CONSONANTS
| c | as the ts in cats or rats |
| h | as in hah or how |
| j | as in jeans |
| q | as the ch in cheap |
| r | sounds like a combination of j and r |
| x | as the sh in sheen |
| z | as the ds in fads |
| zh | as juh |
Other consonants are pronounced more or less as they are in English.
