User Comments - changye

Posted on: Where are you from?

Hi John

> purely out of laziness

This makes more sense!

Posted on: Where are you from?

My Chinese boss just told me that he didn't use capital letters when writing in pinyin at school ....... several decades ago, which means that Hanyu Pinyin was regarded as "pure phonetic symbols" in those days.

And 《汉语拼音正词法基本规则》 (Hanyu Pinyin Authography) was released by government in 1988, which officially stipulates the usage of capital letters for pinyin. I think this change was due to the internationalization of China and the influence of English.

http://www.hpedu.gov.cn/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=16018

Posted on: Dogs and Wealth

Hi John

Your dog is very lovely. As far as appearances go, the name "爱因斯坦" (Einstein) might be more appropriate for your dog than "牛顿" is. hehe.

Posted on: Social Networking

Hi xiaophil

The Chinese authorities tried to standardize the readings of Chinese characters several times starting in the early 20th century. I guess the reading "shuo1 fu2" was officially selected in the process probably because the word is relatively colloquial, but the formal word 游说 (you2shui4) still preserves its authentic reading.

The same is very true for "说" in Japanese. The character "说" is usually pronounced as "se-tsu" in Japanese, while it's pronounced as "zei" when it's used in the word "游说". The sound "zei" corresponds to the middle Chinese reading of "shui4". And Japanese "se-tsu" corresponds to the ancient Chinese reading of "shuo1".

For the record, below is the newest version of 《普通话异读词审音表》 (1985), and this table officially stipulates standard readings for some characters that have different readings. You can find the word "游说" (you2shui4) in the table. I think that readings shown in 《现代汉语词典》 are naturally based on this "authentic" table.

http://baike.baidu.com/view/248604.htm

Posted on: Dogs and Wealth

Hi John

I thought it would be the name of a Chinese scientist. 牛顿 is a nice name, although your dog might not like the character 牛 (cow) in the name!

Posted on: Dogs and Wealth

Oh my dog!

Posted on: Where are you from?

Very sorry, I was wrong! I feel I heard that a long time ago, and I always thought capital letters would not be used for pinyin. I've just found that all of my Chinese textbooks actually use capital letters for pinyin .........　Oh my!

That said,

I have several children's book published in China, and they show pinyin for all the Chinese characters used in them. Interestingly, these books don't use capital letters. All the pinyin are written in small letters.

I think this is because the editors/authors regard pinyin as pure phonetic symbols, but not as characters. I guess that capital letters were not officially used in the early stage of pinyin.

Posted on: Where are you from?

Sorry for nitpicking. You don't use capital letters for pinyin.

Posted on: Dogs and Wealth

I bet the name of John's dog is "钱学森", who is the father of rocket science in the PRC. He studied in the US, and later came back to China. The name contains two nice characters "钱" (money) and "学" (study). I think it's the ideal name for John's dog.

Posted on: Dogs and Wealth

Please look at it this way,

看你平时和女孩子套近乎（的时候）挺活泼的