Pinyin taught wrongly in China

 

Here is a discussion on Quora that confirms my findings that Pinyin is taught wrongly. This explains why many kids in China and Malaysia today can’t read in Pinyin. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to comment.

Luqman Michel · Nov 3

Unfortunately, too many Chinese teachers from China are messing up Pinyin by teaching it wrongly. Here is one of many examples. Teachers from China screwing up Pinyin. LINK

Lynne Li

I read the article that you mentioned, and I also watched the video that you mentioned in that article. The way a female Chinese teacher taught how to pronounce Pinyin and Chinese characters in that video is correct. It’s the same way Chinese teachers in mainland China teach students how to pronounce Pinyin and Chinese characters.

 

Since you mentioned in that article that you taught in mainland China and there was a father who insisted on using Zhuyin fuhao to teach his kid, I need to point out that Zhuyin fuhao is commonly used in Taiwan. People in mainland China use Pinyin to teach people how to pronounce Chinese characters.

Note: This girl does not understand what is Pinyin. She does not understand that bo-po-mo-fo sounds have nothing to do with Pinyin. They were done away with in Mainland China in the late 50s.  

Luqman Michel

Lynne Li you said: ‘It’s the same way that Chinese teachers in mainland China teach students how to pronounce Pinyin and Chinese characters.’

Thank you for your confirmation that this is how they teach in Mainland China.

This is what confuses kids who learn Pinyin. There are only 408 syllables in Mandarin and one is supposed to teach the syllables and not teach them phonetically as in English.

How does one blend mo-en to form the word men?

How does one blend te-ah to form ta?

I would appreciate it if you could get an academician or any of your teacher friends to help me with this.

Note: No others on that thread commented. 

 

Lynne Li

How come one could not “blend mo-en to form the word men”? How come one could not blend “te-ah to form ta”? Have you ever learnt Pinyin? I mean, not just singular Latin letters, but also other ones which combine different Latin letters? Here is a picture showing the Chinese Pinyin Alphabet chart.

 

Luqman Michel

I can read anything written in Pinyin. Pinyin is a syllabic language. I know about Pinyin charts. I have written about Pinyin charts that are written wrongly. Since you are bent on discussing this, please read my post and check the pinyin chart I have attached to my post and we will continue. Pinyin Chart

On the chart, there is no soundtrack for the letters b to k. There is a soundtrack for the syllable ‘men’ Click on it and you will see the 4 different tones for the syllable. So, we learn this as a syllable. It is not mo-en. Mo-en will not amount to anything other than moen.

Note: There was no further response from Lynne Li. What is important is the confirmation that Pinyin is taught wrongly in most schools in China.