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Category Archives: pīnyīn

Sound Off: John DeFrancis 1911-2009

The superlatives used to describe him are certainly on target. To quote from the guest book at the John DeFrancis Memorial site (h/t Granite Studio).

towering and generous
shaped national thinking
full of freshness

Posted 12 January 2009 † syz § DeFrancis ‡ Comments (0) °

Read & write Mandarin: no characters required?

Zhōu Yǒuguāng on a Beijing talk show; 4=2 in Beijing; Pinyin and topolects; schadenfreude

Everyone knows that literacy in Mandarin means hour after brutal hour of memorizing and practicing a script whose design clearly shows the influence of sadistic genius. Here are a couple of favorites from the torture rack: two pairs of characters that have [...]

Posted 01 June 2008 † syz § DeFrancis § beijing-r § běijīnghuà § education § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged:

Don’t take away our pinyin

Thanks to the Guardian, this video of the one of the founding fathers of pinyin, Zhōu Yǒuguāng 周有光, is meandering the blogosphere. Hat tip to pinyin.info for the reference.
Beijing Sounds doesn’t often pick up newsy memes cuz I figure you hear about them elsewhere. And maybe I shouldn’t in this case either, since if you [...]

Posted 22 February 2008 † syz § education ‡ Comments (2) °