Whenever i read a thread in these forums and i see people trying to type Cantonese using English i immediately cringe. Most of the time it's as if i'm given a secret code to decipher as the Pinyin is so poor and far off the mark. It just irritates me so much and actually exposes the fact that many people are also mispronouncing words in Cantonese as their Pinyin is woefully incorrect. Please, just type out the Cantonese or at least make sure it's comprehensible. Btw, i'm aware that Pinyin is the romanisation system for Mandarin, but it's just easier to call it Pinyin.
It also depends on the native language someone is using to translate it into pinyin I think! Not everyone on here has English as first or 2nd language so this might explain why some use a bit different pinyin spelling than others! I mean, I don't even know whether there's an official version ofCanto pinyin, and if there's I wouldn't know where to get info on this.
Believe it or not, a very experienced chinese person will be able to decipher the pinyins of other chinese people even if it's a little off since there is some sort of context in the first place. Just like english, if people type in leet or spell english words lyk dis, an experienced english speaker will be able to decipher most of the words and meanings.
So this Yale version of Canto pinyin covers most European languages...ok, but it still doesn't mean Canto speaking chinese born outside HK should know this? Why would one learn this instead of learning the official Chinese writing? I only use pinyin as an alternative because I can't type in Chinese but I do speak it. Yep! I have no probs deciphering others pinyin!
Somehow, I understand the pinyin of other people without needing the actual chinese words beside it. Once you know enough slang and common usages + sounds of cantonese, it's not that difficult.
It's not a problem with my Cantonese as i'm a fluent speaker and i'm aware of most of the slang. It's probably just that i don't tend to read a lot of this 'Pinyin', but sometimes it's just so off the mark.
Frankly, I am terrible in reading the Cantonese pinyin too... It usually takes me more than 3-4 reads before I understand what's going on... >.<
im a canto fluent speaker..i understand most of the ugly pinyin some PA members make...lol.. it doesnt irriated me...its just that sometimes chinese words are hard to translate into english... therss one i can never translate *ngan sun* lol..^^if anyone can translate in english would be awesome
