I’m just as ignorant if not more so! :) could Chinese be written phonetically? A bit of Wikipedia research suggests possibly yes, this is basically what pinyi

I’m just as ignorant if not more so! :) could Chinese be written phonetically? A bit of Wikipedia research suggests possibly yes, this is basically what pinyin is. Although others in this thread are saying you would potentially lose meaning that way. Surely that would only be the case for written text that’s ambiguous when spoken aloud? Which I can’t think of a situation where that would be a serious problem except for intentional puns.