1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a learning tool, and more particularly to the utilization of accustomed English letters as phonetic symbols for pronunciation of the Chinese characters.
2. Description of Related Arts
The Chinese Language phonetics of the present invention is a phonetics that utilizes letters in the English alphabet as their phonetic symbols for pronunciation of the Chinese characters. The above mentioned Chinese Language is equivalent to the Guoyu (national language) in Taiwan, R.O.C. and the Putonghua (general language) in the Mainland China, P.R.C. At present, the Taiwanese utilizes the Guoyu Zhuyin symbols and the Mainland Chinese utilizes the Chinese Pinyin as phonetic symbols for learning the Chinese language. People in other countries tend to utilize the Chinese Pinyin, which symbols use the letters in English alphabet, for much easier learning.
However, rules of Chinese Pinyin are difficult to understand, since Chinese Pinyin has two characteristics, the first being pronunciations of Chinese Pinyin symbols are linked to that of Latin and the second being Chinese Pinyin utilizes phonetic spelling logics of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols, such that people with an English background but have no knowledge of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols find it difficult to adapt. An example is that the Chinese character (translated as “clothes”) is represented by “i” in Chinese Pinyin. However, people with an English background is accustomed to pronouncing a single “i” as the Chinese character
(translated as “dust”) or a short sound that is similar to the sound of the Chinese character
but not the same long sound of the word
The reason is that there are certain rules as to how vowels in English vocabularies are pronounced. As a result, the linkage between Chinese Pinyin and Latin pronunciations creates the situation of learners having an English background cannot get used to the Chinese Pinyin. Also, Chinese Pinyin phonetically spell the word
as “tian”
but not the direct phonetic spelling of “tien”, this is the result of the utilization of phonetic spelling logics of Guoyu Zhuyin with Chinese Pinyin causing confusions to learners without any knowledge of Guoyu Zhuyin.
To improve the above situations, the Chinese Phonetic symbols has to be linked with the English language, such as the Chinese character translated as “ladder”) should be pronounced as “tee” to replace the pronunciation of “ti” in Chinese Pinyin, which is more suitable for learners with an English background. As a result, with the above settings of Chinese Language phonetics, which is a linkage with English, the entire population of Chinese learners with English background can accept easier when learning the Chinese Language. The above reasons are the reasons for the present invention of Chinese Language Phonetics.
A main object of the present invention is to provide a phonetic system for people with English background to easier learn Chinese. In which, the vowels in this Chinese language phonetics are classified into full sounds and half sounds, represented by full sound symbols and half sound symbols respectively, wherein the full sounds are capable of representing the pronunciations of complete syllables, therefore named full sounds.
Full sound symbols are obtained from vowels of long sound of English vocabularies. Half sounds represent pronunciations for incomplete syllables, therefore named half sounds. Half sound symbols are obtained from vowels of short sound of English vocabularies. As a result, this Chinese language phonetics has the characteristic of a real linkage with vowels of the English language. Apart from the above, this Chinese phonetics comprises the following enabling rules:
Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides a phonetic system for English-speaking Chinese-language learners, wherein said phonetic system comprising:
The present invention also provides a method of providing a phonetic system, comprising the steps of:
These and other objectives, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, the accompanying drawings, and the appended claims.
Vowel phonetic symbols are divided into full sound symbols and half sound symbols, as a result, the present phonetic symbols and their pronunciations are suitable for analogously obtained from the vowel letters of vowel sounds of long sounds or short sounds of English vocabularies, such that they can be easily accepted by people with an English background. For example, a symbol of this Chinese phonetic symbol represented by “oo”, which sound is the same as that of the Chinese character (translated as “dark”), has the same sound as the “oo” in the word “food”. The symbol “oo” can not only represent the correct pronunciation of the word
but also easy to learn. Below is an instruction of the classification of full sounds and half sounds of the present invention illustrating the phonetic symbols and their basis of usage:
The phonetic spelling method according to the above lists is such that full sound symbol can be used alone to represent pronunciations of syllables, for example, full sound symbol “o” alone can represent the sound of a syllable of the Chinese character “ (translated as “Europe”), or used alone to represent the vowel sound of the syllable
(translated as “to cut open”). In phonetic spelling, half sound symbols alone cannot represent a pronunciation of a syllable, but can form combined symbols which can perform the equivalent role of full sound symbols. As an example, combined symbols comprising the half sound symbol “î”, “aî”, “în” and “îe” can be used for phonetically spelling the syllables
bîn
and
respectively.
However, there are a few exception Chinese characters, representing exclamation, such as (translated as “stunned”)
and
(translated as “oh”) (ô), which have pronunciations of half sound syllables.
The systematic characteristics of Conventional Chinese vowel phonetic symbols are not very obvious. As a result, it is relatively difficult to obtain a complete concept during learning. The present classification of full sound and half sound of the Chinese phonetic symbols is suitable for producing a simple phonetic symbol list, providing convenience in analysis and learning, as a result, a method of combining phonetic symbols is invented. In order to provide a simple symbol list, the design is a circle, wherein on an outer periphery of the circle comprises five full sound symbols, namely, “a”, “ee”, “oo”, “ae”, and “o” and their corresponding five half sound symbols, namely, “â”, “ê”, “û”, “ê”, and “ô”. This method of classifying vowels into 5 groups is also utilized by the English Language. It is relatively more systematic, which helps learners to understand the structure of the language. Apart from the symbols on the outer periphery of the circle, inside the circle are special sounds in the Chinese language, namely ii, {circumflex over (ii)} and the neutral sound ∂ and {circumflex over (∂)}. Apart from being able to provide analysis, this list also has the advantage of easy to memorize:
Most consonant in Chinese phonetics are similar to consonants of the English language, as a result, the consonant phonetic symbols of the present Chinese phonetics are taken from consonant letters of English vocabularies. A few Chinese-language-only phonetic are specially defined. Below is a list of consonant phonetic symbols of the present Chinese phonetics and their basis of usage:
Below is the application instructions and application example of the Chinese phonetics:
Consonant symbols “tz″”, “tc″”, “s″”, “rr”, “tz”, “tc” and “s” of this phonetics are similar to consonant symbols , “
”, “
, “
”,
, “
and “
” of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols respectively, wherein the difference in application is that the above listed Guoyu Zhuyin symbols alone can represent the pronunciations of syllables, such as Ψ represents the pronunciation of “
” (translated as “of”) and “
” represents the pronunciation of “
” (translated as “eat”), whereas as consonant symbols of this Chinese phonetics, when used alone, “tz″”, “tc″”, “S″”, “rr”, “tz”, “tc” and “s” are easily considered as sounds of their English letters. As a result, the above mentioned consonant symbols of this Chinese phonetics utilize the “period”, “.”, to distinguish, by marking the lower right hand corner of the symbols, such as “tz″.” to represent the pronunciation of “
”, “tc″.” to represent the pronunciation of “
”, and “S″.” to represent the pronunciation of
(translated as “poem”).
Vowel phonetic symbols “î”, ”ee” “{circumflex over (ii)}”, “ii”, “û”, and “oo” are not to be used on the first symbol of the phonetic marking, instead, they should be matched with consonant sounds “y” or “w” of the same series to provide unity in application, such as “yîn” translated as “sound”), “yee”
translated as “clothing”), “y{circumflex over (ii)}e”
translated as “curve”), “wûô” (
translated as “cave”), and “woo” (
translated as “dark”).
Intonation symbol utilizes method similar to that of Guoyu Zhuyin: first tone utilizes “{overscore ( )}”or no markings; second tone utilizes “{acute over ()}”; third tone utilizes “”; fourth tone utilizes “{grave over ()}”; soft sound utilizes “{dot over ( )}”. Marking positions of intonation symbols are above the last letter of each syllable, such that when phonetically spelling a phrase, the intonation symbols can act as a boundary between syllables, such as “jin{grave over (g)}aì”
translated as “respectably love”) is a combination of the two syllables “jin{grave over (g)}” “aì”.
Below are actual application examples, which are according to and in the order of the Guoyu Zhuyin symbols including the three phonetic spelling of this Chinese phonetics, Guoyu Zhuyin symbols and the Chinese Pinyin for comparison, so as to show the advantages of the present phonetics:
These phonetics can be applied on printed material, virtual media or other medium, so as to pass this Chinese language phonetics to learners.
One skilled in the art will understand that the embodiment of the present invention as shown in the drawings and described above is exemplary only and is not intended to be limiting.
It will thus be seen that the objects of the present invention have been fully and effectively accomplished. It embodiments have been shown and described for the purposes of illustrating the functional and structural principles of the present invention and is subject to change without departure from such principles. Therefore, this invention includes all modifications encompassed within the spirit and scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 092129707 | Oct 2003 | TW | national |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60553337 | Mar 2004 | US |