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Pinyin is phonetic right? So if I say this word in a sentence in Chinese, people have to figure out which one it is out of the 30 possible meanings?
by mahyarm 11y ago
Pinyin is phonetic right? So if I say this word in a sentence in Chinese, people have to figure out which one it is out of the 30 possible meanings?
- wodenokoto 11y agoAs parent mentions, there are things that pinyin doesn't encode, such as temporal spacing. Even in English we tend to opt for spelling homophones different. Witch and which, for example.
- rahimnathwani 11y agoImagine if I asked you to read English words in this way. I segment the words into individual syllables, and show you one at a time. You read each one aloud, and then (very quickly) I show you the next one. So you're constantly reading the phonemes. At the same time, you try to listen to yourself and turn the sounds into meaning. That's kind of what it's like for me to read pinyin. Pinyin is great for learning pronunciation, but not great for getting meaning: it's just too slow.