Some recent news and posts from Pinyin.info
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OMG, it’s nougat (4/15/23) — "OMG" borrowed into Mandarin
A long post on puns, multiscriptal writing, and the difficulties of Hanzi.
Puns piled upon puns.
Microsoft Translator and Pinyin (4/15/23)
Microsoft's not very good character-to-Pinyin conversion.
They have the resources and could surely do better.
Japan likely to regulate pronunciations of personal names (4/14/23) — “No, no, no. It’s spelled ‘Raymond Luxury Yacht,’ but it’s pronounced ‘Throatwobbler Mangrove.’” — Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Among the stories listed in the current e-mail message, this is the biggest news.
Japan to add romanization to names on My Number cards (4/11/23) — The Japanese government has reportedly decided to add romanization for names on My Number cards, starting next year (2024). My Number cards — also known as Individual Number cards (or kojin bangō kādo / 個人番号カード) are a form of national ID.
This is probably something aimed at helping people deal with foreigners, but it seems significant nevertheless.
This will be a much welcome improvement.
Tone marks on Taiwan store sign’s Pinyin (4/10/23) — An observant reader sent in this relatively rare example in Taiwan of the use of Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks on signage
Elegantly esthetic.
Selected readings
- "OMG! American English" (5/1/15)
- "Passport pickup by pinyin" (3/2/12)
cameron said,
April 20, 2023 @ 8:00 am
Throatwobbler? I always thought it was Throatwarbler!
Bob Ladd said,
April 21, 2023 @ 1:45 am
@Cameron: Google agrees with you. Start typing Monty Python Throa and it will autocomplete as Throatwarbler Mangrove. That said, it sounds a lot like Wobbler to me as well.
Tom Dawkes said,
April 21, 2023 @ 12:08 pm
On Pinyin with accents: I thought it interesting that a contestant in a recent edition of the quiz game "University Challenge" on BBC 2 had her name displayed as CHÉN: seehttps://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/20669588/university-challenge-cambridge-team-win/