SQJ Taipei

102 year old Zhou Youguang was fundamental in creating Hanyu pinyin which is the most popular romanization method for Chinese characters.

This is an interesting 4 minute video from the BBC about Zhou and his work.

There are several romanization methods and they all have pros and cons. In the mainland, I think that Zhou’s Hanyu pinyin is the only method used. In Taiwan, it is not uncommon to see 3 or more romanization methods in use during a one minute walk. The various levels of government in Taiwan adopt their own policies for the use of romanization and usually they choose very poorly. Their decisions seem to be driven by politics instead of reason. Apparently they often decide that “NO POLICY IS THE BEST POLICY” because it appears that the romanization method is just a decision of the signmaker alone and it may not be any recognized method… just one that the signmaker made up!

Personally I find the Hanyu method to be extremely simple to read, to write, to use, to enter in phones and computers, to find software for, etc. I use it exclusively when romanizing Chinese names and places on my blog and in other correspondence with only a few exceptions for names and places that are so well known in another romanization that they would not be recognizable if I used the Hanyu form. For example, Taipei would be Taibei using Hanyu.

If you think of romanization methods as “English” you won’t find any of them particularly helpful. However, if you remember that each romanization method has the goal of using the roman alphabet to display the pronunciation of Chinese characters, you’ll be able to make more sense of it. For example, “x” is used in hanyu pinyin to represent the sound “shee”. In English the “x” is pronounced “z” sound or with a hard “ch” sound. So… it isn’t ENGLISH it is ROMANIZATION. In fact, it can never be English because there are too many pronunciation differences and not enough letters to simulate all of them to bridge the languages.

I’d like to learn more about how pinyin is used in helping Chinese people learn Chinese. I’ve heard (and the linked video also says this) that pinyin was created to increase literacy. China uses simplified characters to (supposedly) increase literacy too. I’m puzzled because Taiwan uses traditional characters and mandarin phonetic symbols and literacy is over 96% here. It is currently about 90% in China. So, does pinyin really help Chinese people learn Chinese?

As a foreigner learning Chinese I know pinyin helps me and I’m indebted to Mr. Zhou for his work. After spending about 1 hour learning some of the basic principles and pronunciations for Hanyu pinyin, it becomes familiar and quite useful in many situations. I can read my pinyin Bible faster than my other Chinese Bibles, for example.

I wish Taiwan would universally adopt Hanyu pinyin as its official romanization method. It would help make this island seem more welcoming to tourists and would benefit the people already living here.

However… although pinyin is very helpful and useful… it cannot replace the time that must be invested in learning each character and its meanings. That is a long hard slog if there ever was one. Don’t choose one or the other… learn both!