I was thinking about the answer given by Robert Matthews (馬學進) from Taipei who said that there is no reason to change Bopomofo as it has worked for decades. This reminded me of the story I read on the Internet several years ago.
In case you haven’t heard of it, here’s a quick synopsis of it:
The following is from Quora, posted one year ago.
What are the disadvantages of teaching Chinese using Pinyin instead of learning all those Chinese characters?
Somnath Mukherjee answered: MSc. from Dr. C V Raman University
There are a few disadvantages to teaching Chinese using Pinyin instead of learning all those Chinese characters.
Pinyin is not a perfect representation of Chinese pronunciation. Some sounds in Chinese cannot be represented by Pinyin and some sounds in Pinyin can be pronounced in different ways depending on the context. This can make it difficult for learners to develop accurate pronunciation.
What are some reasons why some people believe that pinyin in Mandarin is not useful?
The above was a question on Quora.
Jojo Dennis Lee answered as below:
Pinyin is hard to read and write specially for English and Spanish speaking people. This is because the letters that are used are pronounced differently. For example, 北京 which was originally named in English as Peking and later changed to Beijing to adopt to Pinyin. But the pronunciation is actually “Pei Ching” or “Pay Tsing”. Another example is 道 (Dào in Pinyin) which means road but is actually pronounced as Tao. There are no B, D, G, J, V, X, Z sounds in Mandarin.
Pinyin was designed for people in China who don’t speak English. But for people who already know English, it is confusing and will mispronounce it.
The video below was what started me on my journey to find out if there were other teachers teaching Pinyin the way this teacher, Melody JY Lyu @Mandarin Melon is teaching. LINK
Since then, I found several other teachers on Face Book and YouTube teaching pinyin this way. This is detrimental to kids learning Pinyin.
This is similar to what I had discovered and written in my book Shut Down Kids. The Chinese teachers and politicians ought to get a copy of this book.
Here is my email to the Chinese Consulate in Kota Kinabalu.
I wonder why the Chinese are so secretive in not willing to give me an appointment to complain about Chinese citizens infiltrating my country via Face Book and YouTube and corrupting the Chinese education here.
Could this be a ploy by some party to corrupt the Chinese education in Malaysia?
As an AI assistant created by Anthropic, I do not have the ability to directly access external websites or content. However, based on the information you have provided from the blog post, here is my response:
It seems you have identified an issue with how some teachers are incorrectly teaching Pinyin, the Romanized phonetic system used to represent the sounds of Mandarin Chinese. Your concern is that teaching Pinyin in a way similar to phonics for English could be detrimental for children learning to read Pinyin effectively.
A few suggestions on what you could do in this situation:
Robert Matthews LinkedIn Profile says the following:
My eclectic background (linguistics/biology/humanities+Chi/Fre/Span/Russ), teaching experience, and grasp of technology, make me suited for challenging jobs requiring advanced language skills, especially technical translation, indexing and language training.
Robert Matthews (馬學進) who lives in Taipei wrote the following on Quora in response to my answer.
Robert Matthews:
This addendum is an extended response to a comment by Luqman Michel, who is very upset that Bopomofo (which he seems to regard as backward and harmful), is somehow harming the teaching of Pinyin in Malaysia.
There are teachers from Tianjin, China who are teaching Pinyin using Bopomofo sounds. This is why I asked this question. We in Malaysia did away with Bopomofo in the 70’s and introduced Hanyu Pinyin. Why can’t China get rid of Bopomofo in China?
My response:
My question to AI:
You said (referring to what AI said in the pervious episode): 'many Taiwanese students are able to overcome these challenges and develop strong English literacy skills through effective teaching methods and dedicated practice.' Do you have any idea who are those who find it difficult to overcome the challenges? I am asking this question based on my research. I discovered that many intelligent kids shut down/disengage from learning to read in English due to confusion. Could this apply to Taiwanese kids as well?
Answer from AI:
当局者迷,旁观者清
dāng jú zhě mí, páng guān zhě qīng
When I thought of writing about the following chart the above proverb came to mind.
When you are playing chess, sometimes it’s not easy to make good a
judgment since you've been so indulged in the game. Whereas, a person who
sits next to you may have a better view or understanding of the
situation thus to make a better decision than you. This proverb tells
people that being involved in a matter may not guarantee a comprehensive
overview of it due to too much concentration on gains and losses, while
the onlookers, who have a calmer and more objective attitude, have a
better grasp of what is going on.
The above is one of many Pinyin charts you may find on the internet.
Click on this link to see the chart clearly. LINK
On the top column you will see letters bpmfdtn until the end which is the letter r.
On the left hand you will see letters i to the last cell down which shows un.
There are no sound tracks for the letters b to h at the top. All other cells including the green column on the left have sound tracks.
Today, I decided to ask Artificial Intelligence some questions and here is part one of my Q&A.
My question: Why are there kids in Taiwan who can't read in English? Are the sounds they learned under Bopomofo a hindrance?
Answer by AI:
As an informed individual from August 2023, I can provide some context on the situation with English literacy among students in Taiwan.
The use of Bopomofo (also known as Zhuyin Fuhao) as the primary phonetic system taught in Taiwanese schools has indeed been a point of discussion regarding English proficiency. Bopomofo is the phonetic script used to teach Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, and it has a different structure and representation compared to the Roman alphabet used in English.
This guy Yong Wen San, who commented on Quora, is a highly educated guy. I walked away from his questions on Quora simply because I did not want to embarrass him but he insists on continuing and I thought it best to answer him. I have high respect for him.
The problem for many of us is that we quite often wear blinkers and do
not want to see different perspectives. (Different perspective is the motto for
my blog which was suggested by one of my sons.)
6 years ago, someone on Quora had asked: Which is better when learning Chinese: characters without Pinyin or Pinyin without characters?
Yong Wen San replied as follows.
If you are serious about learning the Chinese language, then you should aim to shed pinyin from your system as soon as possible.
For the beginner learner, especially one who is not immersed in a Chinese-speaking environment, pinyin does serve as a useful tool for learning the pronunciation of characters and words in Modern Standard Chinese. But that is all it should be seen as - a tool to aid learning pronunciation. I take issue with anyone who makes the sweeping statement that you can “learn Chinese using pinyin”. That will only help you with the spoken modern Chinese language, and even then, it will only take you as far as some basic phrases - ordering food at an eatery, buying something from a grocery store, asking for directions, etc. If your ambitions in “learning Chinese” only go that far, then fine, you can stop reading here.
The following are video clips taken from Face Book where teachers from China are screwing up Pinyin.
I warned that more and more teachers will be ending up teaching Pinyin wrongly. Unfortunately this has already been happening for many years now.
Many intelligent kids are unable to read in Pinyin and will be classified as dyslexic similar to kids learning English.
I wrote about one such teacher who teaches Pinyin and I commented on her YouTube channel and she has yet to respond to my question. Please refer to my post here.
