Knock it off, all of you, I am not a moderator, nor do I play one on TV, but I do know how to ping them to a thread. This is supposed to be a family forum, the name calling and !@#$%$$% swearing will get me to pull this from my children’s allow list if this stuff keeps up.
Pganini: I spent two years in Taiwan as a missionary, (Mostly around Gao Shong) I know what Bo Po Mo Fo is. There is no reason a native speaker would be well versed in Romanization.
Tallhappy: There are specific characters that are used to translate things, this is violated all the time, but that’s the way it was originally set up, it’s phonetic (Look up the original translation of Coke when it went to the mainland for some laughs)
Dr. Marten: I have lived as a foreigner in Japan, Taiwan, Visited Israel when my sister lived there, and Germany when my other sister lived there. I know what you mean about being a stranger in a strange land. That still does not excuse the tone of this thread.
Please try to have an enlightened conversation, which this forum is renowned for.
I leave you with some advice my father gave me: “You cannot change the mind with logic that was made up without the use thereof.” So if you ever feel you are answering illogical arguments, don’t, just smile and move on to other topics. (Or at least go into a private area where my children won't read it.)
I certainly didn't expect the thread I clicked on to take the turn it did. Who knew Chinese tattoos were this controversial? ;)
FYI, I was hardly complaing about being a stranger in a foreign land.
I've spent time in Japan as well as a few other countries and China is a completely different environment. Unless you've been there, you wouldn't understand.
Gao shiung huh? (or Kaoshiung for the official translation). That's where I was born, actually.
And no, we were never taught Romanization of Buh Puh Muh Fuh. I believe China uses Romanization for Buh Puh Muh Fuh, but Taiwan under KMT uses its own system and a separate "language" to describe the Pinyin. The fact is, with Western characters, you can't ever get to the right pronounciation just by speaking it as if it's a Western language. In the computer age, I think it's important to use alphabets + some special characters to describe the language simply for efficiency reasons, but as far as pronounciation is concerned, it doesn't really help. In fact, I think Romanization of Chinese characters hurt people who are trying to learn Chinese, because they would use their native (whether English or what not) way to pronounce the Roman characters, which are NOT suppose to pronounce like English/Latin/Italian/whatever.
two, your comments in no way contradicts anything I stated and in fact your comment is difficult to understand concerning any point you are making.
I have stated that of course the terms are phonetic. I have also stated that the choice of character from among the same phoneme is not purely random.
Everything I am saying is 100% accurate and obvious and universally understood.
It's not a msytery or secret.
The issue becomes CCP netagandists seek to attack and villify for the simple sake of spreading anger, dissension and confusion.
They are classical disruptors.
PS is Kaohsiung or gaoxiong (although of course what you mean is understtod and the difference are trivial). This later comment is an example of what the CCP disruptors do -- they try to turn routine non-controversial discussions on something as simple as translation or tranilliteration in to a vicious fight with some sort of broader implication.
And, the attacks are based on nothing at all.
So delphiuser, your purpose is hard to understand and you come across simply as boorish and a bit slow.