jumpingjacktrash:

cherrymilkshake:

iamnotalungfish:

histia:

histia:

psa non chinese/white ppl, Beijing is not pronounced “"bay zhhh-ing”“ ,,, its pronounced ”“bay jing”“ with a hArd J.

and Shanghai is pronounced “sh-ahh-ng high” nOt “shay-ng high” ok pls thx bye

ok ADDING onto this bc this shit gets me heated .. Beijing and Shanghai are prob the two most well known cities in China that western countries/ other places know of and i cant recall ever hearing a non-chinese person saying Beijing or Shanghai the right way ? my history teachers, on tv, ppl i know, etc etc ..

pls make an effort to say the two easiest pronunciations correctly, its ok if u didnt kno/uve been saying it wrong but correct urself if u habe been !!! correct othrr ppl bc its rlyyy annoying thank u (edit: btw any1 can rb this!!)

I have mixed feelings about this. Specifically, I’m uncomfortable with the framing – that people who speak a particular language and who have adopted a different pronunciation of a borrowed word from the pronunciation found in the source language in a manner closer to their own phonetics and phonemes are engaging in problematic behaviour that should be “corrected”, because they are thus acting wrongfully towards the group that “owns” the word.
Due to historical, cultural, and linguistic factors, the names of countries and cities in languages outside of their source languages are often very different, such as the English pronunciation of Paris (Payr-iss vs. Pah-ree) or the French pronunciation and spelling of London (Londre) or the bizarre situation that resulted in Germany is being called Deutschland, Tyskland, Allemagne, Germania, Niemcy, Alemania, and Duitsland throughout the various European languages (as well as “Déyìzhì” or"Déguó" in Mandarin, where this also happens). Two notable Canadian cities, Ottawa and Toronto, are pronounced “Wòtàihuá” and “Duōlúnduō” because English and Mandarin phonemes don’t map well. That’s not even accounting for differences between different dialects of the same language.
It’s super interesting to know how Beijing and Shanghai are pronounced in China – absolutely it is. Especially because as a combination of phonemes, it is super unintuitive to the average English-speaker. Likewise, the idea of choosing a pronunciation closer to the source language is an interesting way of expressing deference and respect to the speakers of those languages. However, it is notable that such an aesthetic preference is heavily coded as a signal of high educational attainment and all the privilege that entails. The most common usage of the pronounciation of foreign-language words with the phonemes found within the source language is as of a way of obnoxiously and condescendingly positioning oneself as culturally and intellectually superior to one’s interlocutors – which makes this post’s second recommendation, that one go about “correcting” people who pronounce these place names in the accepted manner of their language community, even dicier, because this kind of reprimand and social censure, particularly for people with lower education attainment, can be incredibly shaming.
Thus, seeing as the practical harm of saying Beijing with a soft versus a hard j is entirely unclear, I would endorse that one choose for oneself which one prefers, and if one really feels strongly about the issue, modelling the pronunciation one prefers oneself, with a most the occasional light, “Hey, did you know they say it like this in China? Neat huh?” rather than embarrassing people for saying it the way they’ve always heard it said.

Yeah, like… it’s not even actually the English /j/, which in IPA is [d͡ʒ]. The /j/ in Beijing is this sound: [t͡ɕ] which doesn’t exist in English. Saying “bay-JING” is still “wrong”, especially sans the correct tones.

Languages will always have their own pronunciations of foreign words, especially when adapting sounds that are not in their phonology. Like, I’m not here in Korea telling people they shouldn’t pronounce “pizza” as [’pidʑa] in Korean just because it happens to come from an English word (the pronunciation of which is different from the original Italian). I’ll correct them in English, sure, because in English it might impede understanding (especially when “zoo” becomes “Jew”), but in Korean? That’s the word, and there’s no point in being condescending about it.     

also, why is this addressed to ‘white people’ as if kenyans and pakistanis definitely pronounce beijing with a hard j? that’s so tumblr.

dear OP, i know you mean well, but please be cool. pretty sure you mispronounce copenhagen and moscow.