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wind_in_the_stones
How do you pronounce "Wuxing"?

And if nobody here speaks Chinese, how do you pronounce "Wuxing"?
Fortune
Personally, I pronounce it WOOX-ing. But I have no clue if that is correct or not. biggrin.gif
eidolon
Oi. I speak Mandarin, but unfortunately the best way to show you how to pronounce it also requires your knowing Pinyin.

It's sorta like oo shing. oo like in cool and shing rhyming with thing.

Also, I have no idea what the tones would be. I say it Wu3xing4 (low tone and falling tone), but that's just because I like saying it that way. I suppose you could reverse engineer the tones if you knew what it was supposed to mean in English (if anything; I can't remember if they ever say in the books).

This isn't great, but here's audio of the two syllables as I say it.
http://www.mandarintools.com/sounds/wu2.aif
http://www.mandarintools.com/sounds/xing4.aif (she's really emphasizing the ng sound; doesn't necessarily have to be that pronounced)

Kagetenshi
"Scumbags".

~J
DireRadiant
Which dialect?

In HK it will be Cantonese, which will sound very different to western ears then the Mandarin pronunciation, though Cantonese and Mandarin speakers will probably be able to figure out what each other is saying easily enough.

Try Wu Shing or Wu Tsing which would be the old romanized way of spelling in English
eidolon
Wade-Giles is quite possibly the worst way of representing Chinese sounds. Ever.
Dashifen
QUOTE (DireRadiant)
Wu Tsing

That's the beat I dance to. Then I have native Chinese speakers give a social indicator (rolling eyes, big sigh, etc.) regarding the mangling of their language.
Blade
QUOTE (DireRadiant)
Cantonese and Mandarin speakers will probably be able to figure out what each other is saying easily enough.

The "easily enough" is a bit optimistic here.
A mandarin friend of mine used a whiteboard to 'talk' with her cantonese roommate for a few days before being more or less able to understand and be understood.
PBTHHHHT
Aye, that is VERY VERY optimistic. My parents speak both cantonese and mandarin so I am familiar with both dialects. Though I mainly speak cantonese since that's what they spoke to me as a kid.
'easily enough'... heh
DireRadiant
QUOTE (Blade)
QUOTE (DireRadiant @ Oct 22 2007, 03:43 PM)
Cantonese and Mandarin speakers will probably be able to figure out what each other is saying easily enough.

The "easily enough" is a bit optimistic here.
A mandarin friend of mine used a whiteboard to 'talk' with her cantonese roommate for a few days before being more or less able to understand and be understood.

Exactly, once you map and get used to the tonal shifts it becomes easier. Then you just get messed up by the fact one has 7 tones and the other 9, which don't quite go directly so you get odd drops in the translation.

When the relatives get going in Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and English all at once it does get a bit confusing admittedly.
BishopMcQ
I grew up in a house where Tagalog and English were regularly intermixed. The worst part was when family from the PI came over and started speaking "dialects" of Tagalog which are actually separate languages.
Wounded Ronin
I thought it was "woo-shing".

"Whooshing" if you want to make an ironic joke about bad pronounciations.

"You approach the whooshing facility and..."

"Why is the facility whooshing?"

"Because they own the land."

"Oh, I thought you meant there was a whooshing noise coming out of it or something."
MaxHunter
oh god biggrin.gif
MaxHunter
sorry -double post- sleepy.gif
toturi
Wu3Xing2.

I assume that Wuxing takes its meaning from the 5 elements, if so, then it is how it should be pronounced.
eidolon
Xing2 isn't nearly as evil-bad-corp sounding as Xing4 though. wink.gif
toturi
But xing4 sounds positively stupid to me, it sounds like the company has had 5 sex changes.
MaxHunter
Didn't get that. However, I will take this excellent opportunity to ask my chinese masters fellows here:

how do you say "Nobody saw anything" in cantonese?

Cheers!

Max
wind_in_the_stones
Figures I'd post a question, and forget to look for answers.

So I gather that no matter what dialect, the English "ks" sounding X does not happen. That was my understanding, previously. Thanks for the confirmation of that, at least. I will try to restrain myself from smacking those who say "Wucksing." And thanks for the further help with pronunciation, though since I will continue to associate with people who will give me that look if I try to approximate the actual pronunciation of any non-English word, I will not actually be putting this knowledge into practice.

Thanks all!
ShadowDragon8685
I always thought it was "WUX-ing".
Snow_Fox
QUOTE (PBTHHHHT)
My parents speak both cantonese and mandarin so I am familiar with both dialects. Though I mainly speak cantonese

So what is the answer then?

I always went with "Woo-sing" but my Cantonese is incredibly limited.
MaxHunter
and what about "nobody saw anything"? ohplease.gif

cheers!

Max
Blade
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/w...rch.php?level=0

Search for "nobody", "see" and "anything", write down the Jyutping and look it up in a pronunciation guide. Grammar shouldn't have any impact.

And watch some Hong Kong movie to get the overall tone to use when speaking cantonese (such as speaking fast but making ending vowels last longer than usual), that's the most important thing.
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