leave it to Shiranui to hoodwink Tenryuu

And I thought Santa was some kind of good man going around giving poor kids presents from some long time ago in Europe. Haha.

Shiranui defender of innocence how ironic

So, basically Matataku's Santas? post #1326185

＠Paracite: The 'd' in Chinese pinyin is pronounced like a 't' though (Chinese doesn't really have voiced consonants). so the "santa" part still sounds the same in both Chinese and Japanese.

(Which is why I prefer Wade-Giles when transliterating Chinese for English readers. More intuitive to read, and looks far nicer in the Latin alphabet, and this is coming from a native Chinese speaker.

Pinyin is more useful for native Chinese speakers though, as less symbols are involved.)

NNescio said:

＠Paracite: The 'd' in Chinese pinyin is pronounced like a 't' though (Chinese doesn't really have voiced consonants). so the "santa" part still sounds the same in both Chinese and Japanese.

(Which is why I prefer Wade-Giles when transliterating Chinese for English readers. More intuitive to read, and looks far nicer in the Latin alphabet, and this is coming from a native Chinese speaker.

Pinyin is more useful for native Chinese speakers though, as less symbols are involved.)

What? How do you pronounce 'tan' (sheet) vs. 'dan' (egg) then?

kozaki.saya said:

What? How do you pronounce 'tan' (sheet) vs. 'dan' (egg) then?

kozaki.saya said:

What? How do you pronounce 'tan' (sheet) vs. 'dan' (egg) then?

'tan' is aspirated (strong burst of air). 'dan' is not. Wade-Giles distinguishes the two by using t'an and tan. IPA does it by using /tʰan/ (superscript h) and /tan/.

The closest sounds I can come up with in English are the t in 'stand' (unaspirated t) or 'sty' or 'stable' vs the t in 'tin' or 'tie' or 'tank' (aspirated t).

You can practice with a candle flame or a piece of paper. The flame (or paper) is not supposed to move when you pronounce the unaspirated version of a consonant.

I don't believe that most native Chinese speakers really pay attention to these differences, but I had it hammered into my mind (along with the candle flame/paper test) by my elementary/primary school teacher when I was roped into the speech competition team.

NNescio said:

'tan' is aspirated (strong burst of air). 'dan' is not. Wade-Giles distinguishes the two by using t'an and tan. IPA does it by using /tʰan/ (superscript h) and /tan/.

The closest sounds I can come up with in English are the t in 'stand' (unaspirated t) or 'sty' or 'stable' vs the t in 'tin' or 'tie' or 'tank' (aspirated t).

You can practice with a candle flame or a piece of paper. The flame (or paper) is not supposed to move when you pronounce the unaspirated version of a consonant.

I don't believe that most native Chinese speakers really pay attention to these differences, but I had it hammered into my mind (along with the candle flame/paper test) by my elementary/primary school teacher when I was roped into the speech competition team.

That just feels weird to me, as a native mandarin speaker. The examples given don't really make sense to me, heh.

Pretty much all my family (Beijing, Shanghai, and later some Taipei ones) have a pretty clear distinction between what would be a 'd' and 't' sound. Like, egg tarts ('dan ta'), one sounds very clearly 'd', the second word is very clearly 't'. Those are the same sounds used for the rest of the d/t stuff.

EDIT addendum: 'dan ta' would have the d pronounced like in "die" in English, the t would be like in 'tap'.

kozaki.saya said:

That just feels weird to me, as a native mandarin speaker. The examples given don't really make sense to me, heh.

Pretty much all my family (Beijing, Shanghai, and later some Taipei ones) have a pretty clear distinction between what would be a 'd' and 't' sound. Like, egg tarts ('dan ta'), one sounds very clearly 'd', the second word is very clearly 't'. Those are the same sounds used for the rest of the d/t stuff.

EDIT addendum: 'dan ta' would have the d pronounced like in "die" in English, the t would be like in 'tap'.

I'm going to run a little experiment here, using Italian, which I presume you are unfamiliar with, so as to minimize bias.(Also, more importantly, the Italians generally do not aspirate their t's) Listen carefully without reading the words, once on the Italian words, and the second time with the English equivalents:

(Yes, it's Google Translate, but Forvo doesn't offer the same consistency and sometimes the voices are too soft so as to be inaudible. Plus the speech synthesizer is generally accurate anyway.)

https://translate.google.com/#it/en/tab%C3%B9.%20%0Atacchino.%20%0Atacito.%0Atavola.%0Atelepatia.%0Atelescopio.%0Atema.%20%0Atifone.%0Atigre.%0Atorcia.%0Atraffico.%0Atragedia.%0Atrofeo.%0Atrono.%0A%0AItalia.

(Pay special attention to Italia/Italy. And note: Why 意大利 instead of 意他利?)

Also this baidu article might shed some additional light (specifically the linked section):

http://baike.baidu.com/view/36522.htm#10_2

NNescio said:

I'm going to run a little experiment here, using Italian, which I presume you are unfamiliar with, so as to minimize bias.(Also, more importantly, the Italians generally do not aspirate their t's) Listen carefully without reading the words, once on the Italian words, and the second time with the English equivalents:

(Yes, it's Google Translate, but Forvo doesn't offer the same consistency and sometimes the voices are too soft so as to be inaudible. Plus the speech synthesizer is generally accurate anyway.)

https://translate.google.com/#it/en/tab%C3%B9.%20%0Atacchino.%20%0Atacito.%0Atavola.%0Atelepatia.%0Atelescopio.%0Atema.%20%0Atifone.%0Atigre.%0Atorcia.%0Atraffico.%0Atragedia.%0Atrofeo.%0Atrono.%0A%0AItalia.

(Pay special attention to Italia/Italy. And note: Why 意大利 instead of 意他利?)

Also this baidu article might shed some additional light (specifically the linked section):

http://baike.baidu.com/view/36522.htm#10_2

English (and German) consonants have something called fortis/lenis (strong/weak) pairs. English unvoiced (清音) consonants are 'strong' and generally are pronounced with a slightly stronger puff of air than their voiced (濁音) counterparts, which are considered 'soft'. To most speakers of European languages (and Japanese), the key focus is the unvoiced/voiced aspect.

Chinese doesn't really distinguish between voiced/unvoiced consonants (they do exist, especially around certain vowels, but it's not generally considered important). As such, some Chinese speakers may focus more on the 'strong' aspect of 't' vs 'd' and and hear 't' as /tʰ/ and 'd' as /t/. Likewise, they may substitute tʰ for t and t for d. I believe this forms the basis of most perceptions of a "Chinese accent".

(Or at least, this is what my Japanese teacher told me when I was mispronouncing the /t/ and /d/ in Japanese. And notably, my English pronunciation improved after learning Japanese.)

English speakers may do the opposite, resulting in the so called 'gwailo' accent (well, that and the unnaturally stressed syllables).

Italian /t/ and /d/ however, do not form fortis-lenis pairs. Both consonants are pronounced more or less equally 'strongly'. I therefore use it as the basis of my test, with my hypothesis as follows:

Native English speakers will consistently hear Italian 't' as t. Native Chinese speakers may confuse Italian 't' for 'd'.

Let's see if the data supports this.

I listened to the Google thing as requested. My opinion is that the Italian pronunciations are definitely ambiguous in terms of whether it's t or d (and definitely sounds closer to a d to me), but that also doesn't sound like a lot of spoken Mandarin, either.

As for 意大利, that's evidently because even Chinese speakers regard that sound as closer to a d than a t, I'd assume. Which really goes against romanizing certain chinese words with a t instead of d (Dao comes to mind, especially.)