Good examples on the place names — of course it goes without saying that the Beijing Sounds editorial position is in agreement. It basically boils down to this: you should pronounce place names according to the tradition of the language you speak (with certain caveats that are too detailed to go into here — but that’s the basic rule). But your point about “bayjing” being a “foreign sound” doesn’t quite hold water. That’s exactly why the advocates of “bayjing” are so apoplectic, because both Bay and Jing are perfectly normal syllables in English. Moreover, the J sound in Jing is much more common in English than the zzh sound of, say, “fusion”.

Of course, to any monolingual speaker, a foreign language will sound foreign. That is the definition of monolingual.

What is your main point. Are you trying to suggest that the U.S. has a larger proportion of ‘monolingual speakers’. Do not be misled by the generosity of Americans who devote time and effort helping others learn English. In some countries learning English has become an obsession. In China and Japan, for example, I am treated much better if I speak only English because that gives ‘face’ to my interlocutors and a free English lesson. I often encounter East Asians who pretend not to speak their native language in order to get help with English and usually play along to make them happy.

Regarding Peking, it will always be Peking to me in English, not bayjing or other foreign sound. We say Paris, not paree, rome, not roma, bangkok not krunthep, so why try to stuff han sounds into English.
And in China most people say ‘hwashungdun’ not Washington,

note to moderator; previous email address gets too much spam so I provided an alternate address here and a slightly revised comment for you review.

Don’t let the importantists and significiers deceive you and belittle your undertaking: the pronunciation of the Chinese capital, around the world, is of immense industrial, military, social and economic importance. Only we privileged few have eyes with which to see this.

Good to know that we can count Japanese-speakers as another reasonable group of folks who choose to pronounce the name in the way that feels most comfortable. Let it be noted, though, that the BJS studios are open to hiring, in the name of intellectual diversity, a new analyst who inclines towards “Peiping”

In German ‘Peking’ is standard, usually nobody would understand ‘Beijing’.

That means we can add German speakers to the vast majority in the world willing to just take a name and run with it!

My family are of the BeiZhing thought train but when my parents came to Tianjin I had a bit of a problem telling my dad how to pronounce Tianjin as he kept saying ‘Tien tsin’ which I’ve never heard people saying before. And one of his friends was convinced that Tien tsin and Tianjin were two different places so he was very pleased when he found out his friend was wrong…..

Meeting someone in China who was saying that next they were going to Zion to see the Terracotta Army made me laugh.