#pinyin

EDIT!!! 2026.02.11 we are at 1 1/2 YEARS bedtime stories podfic ~~ ヽ(´ー｀)ノ posted something today for the first time in forever!

In English:

dong-chinese's pinyin guide and tone trainer: https://www.dong-chinese.com/learn/sounds/pinyin 

Yoyo Chinese's pinyin chart: https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table 

Yoyo Chinese's tone pairs chart https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/tone-pairs

In Mandarin:

This video is a Mandarin speaker going through the pronunciation of all the initials and finals : https://youtu.be/qKep0hxW_hE?si=xTEEIOj05_pRfRBV 

This Mandarin video playlist that goes through pinyin pronunciation too: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJGfzjcr6g7hC2uptvrKYncItJ9La_dwU

Contains Cantonese:

This 03粤语音标录播课程（粤语拼音）13节课 playlist is a Mandarin speaker explaining Cantonese I think, but the comparison between the pronunciations might be useful: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF9R18laHAEWYcgiwLkLFXQrBG2S3Zr3-&si=nwAR100nV2Q4LTRd

In Cantonese:

Hello, and yes of course! I don't know what your character's name is yet, but I added three links that felt helpful for me just in case <3

for your next poem/story

Pinyin - English

Àn - dark

Ān quán - safe

Bēi cǎn - tragic

Dú tè - unique

Fàng sōng - relaxed

Hài xiū - shy

Huā shào - flowery

Jiāo - burnt

Jiāo ruò - delicate

Jīng diǎn - timeless

Jīng zhì - exquisite

Kǔ tián - bittersweet

Měi (lì) - beautiful

Méng lóng - misty, hazy

Mó hu - vague

Nài xīn - patient

Qí guài - strange

Róu hé - soft

Sī huá - silky

Tián - sweet

Xī yǒu - rare

Xiāng - fragrant, aromatic

Yǒu jià zhí - valuable

Yù - rich, strong

Zì xìn - confident

Hanyu pinyin

The phonetic symbols for Chinese characters.

The system to transcribe Mandarin Chinese sounds into a Latin alphabet.

It was invented in the 50s, and adopted officially in mainland China in 1958.

Pinyin is used for several purposes:

It can help learners of Chinese (including native speakers) to read Chinese characters and/or words.

To transcribe names and places into words accessible to Romanized language speakers, and it can be used as an input method for typing Chinese characters.

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read them!

Mandarin plosives have an aspiration distinction rather than voicing, and both systems handle this in an oké way, though I prefer pinyin and it is by far the most popular system these days. if I were doing a WG-style system, I'd replace the apostrophes with <h>

/p, pʰ/ = PY <b, p> and WG <p, p'>

/t, tʰ/ = PY <d, t> and WG <t, t'>

/k, kʰ/ = PY <g, k> and WG <k, k'>

then we get to the fricative-affricate trios,

Dent. /s, ts, tsʰ/ = PY <s, z, c> and WG <s, ts, ts'>

Retro. /ʂ, tʂ, tʂʰ/ = PY <sh, zh, ch> and WG <sh, ch, ch'>

Palat. /ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ/ = PY <x, j, q> and WG <hs, ch, ch'>

and here pinyin is just misleading. I actually quite enjoy <q> aesthetically for a "ch-like" sound, but if we're trying to use single letters for everything, firstly, why ? and secondly, using digraphs only for the retroflexes,, moreover the second letter being <_h> but it's not for aspiration, is a Really Weird Choice. and WG doesn't even bother to distinguish the retroflexes so that's not an option.

I like the pinyin-style "pseudo-voicing" transcription for plosives, but I do like the idea of using <_h> for the affricates in the culmær system. that is inconsistent, yes, but it feels more intuitive

dental looks better than <s, dz, ts>

retroflex <ś, tś, tśh> ... or perhaps we use <x, tx, txh> here to avoid diacritics for some reason, though it is suboptimal for people coming from pinyin which I don't want to disregard as a design criterion

palatal <c, tc, tch> or <j, tj, tjh>, maybe even <c, tj, tch> ? the <c, j> feel good as palatals because IPA, but again we've got the pinyin issue. and it's a real pity to lose the <q> here

So I had no idea how bad I was at remembering Chinese names or why it was so difficult for me until I actually started learning the language and realized Chinese names use very different sounds in comparison to English ones and my brain wasn’t registering them as names or even words because I couldn’t recreate them in my head.

Sadly the only real solution to this was getting used to the way pinyin works and mandarin sounds, which just takes practice. I’m still not great at it but, I’m getting better as I learn the language.

なにやら様子がおかしい広東語キーボード

Came across this Japanese video recently that was comparing the pros and cons of different Chinese keyboard input options.

I'm just amused that the video title singled out the “Cantonese keyboard” (広東語キーボード), actually refers to the 倉頡 (Cangjie) keyboard — it's not just for Cantonese, really — and called it “strange and amusing” (おかしい).