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This is a follow-up to "How to pronounce the name of the ruler of the PRC" (10/26/25).  Surprised by the amount of dissension over how to pronounce his name and how to represent the pronunciation in romanization, I decided to try another approach.  I asked all of the students (undergrads and grads) in my Fiction and Drama and in my Language, Script, and Society in China classes to write down the best way that could think of to transcribe Xi Jinping's in roman or Cyrillic letters — other than the official Hanyu Pinyin version, Xi Jinping.

Only two of the students were linguistics majors, about a dozen were East Asian Languages and Civilizations majors.  The remainder were drawn from a wide variety of disciplines and fields (humanities, sciences, and social sciences) across the university.  About 90% had a Chinese background (ranging in ability from minimal acquaintance to full fluency).  There were a couple of students from Taiwan, a few from Cantonese and other topolect areas, one had a Korean background, and two or three had no prior exposure to any East Asian languages.

About half of them had some familiarity with Pinyin, but I told them not to use Pinyin or be influenced by Pinyin in drawing up their proposals.

All of the students have native or near-native competence in English

Here are the results of the survey of those who attended class that day:

1. Shee gee pee-n

2. Shi Ginping

3. She-tsin-ping

4. Shee jihn-ping

5. she jeen peen

6. she jean ping

7. She gin ping

8. She Jean pin

9. hi dgiŋ Phiŋ

10. Tsi Jen Ping

11. se-zing-ping

12. shi chin ping

13. See jing Ping

14. sh-e ji-ping (hold your tongue in the sh position and move it up a bit)

15. See Jin Ping

16. see jin ping

17. She-Jin-ping (she as in her)

18. I tell my Hispanic friends "Si", but my American friends say "C".   I say the jing ping pair rhyme with zing.

19. cee jing ping

20. htsee jin ping

21. shee zhing ping

22. She Qin Ping

23. she-jing-ping (as in ping pong)

24. Щи джин пинь 

25. Си Дзиньпин (Dungan)

26. Си Цзиньпи́н (official Russian transcription)

N.B.:  Within a week or so, I will make a new post on Dungan and explain how it is that we have a Dungan speaker at Penn this year.

P.S.:  Yesterday, I heard a television newscaster repeatedly pronounce "Xi" as "Gee".

Selected readings

• "How to pronounce the name of the ruler of the PRC" (10/26/25)
• "How to say 'Xi Jinping' en français" (4/16/18) — very short, but it makes me laugh every time I hear it.  Must watch / listen.  "Sissy Ping".
• "Sino-Russian Transcription and Transliteration" (9/17/08)
• "Putin in Russian, Mandarin, and English" (1/21/18)

November 4, 2025 @ 8:09 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Pronunciation, Romanization, Transcription

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