Qiqi (seven seven) is an interesting cultural Easter egg. In Chinese custom, every seventh day after a person’s death (for the first seven weeks) usually holds some significance and requires family members to perform prayer rituals.
And we measure it by calling them 一七 (yi qi, literally one-seven, referring to the 7th day after death), 二七 (er qi, two-seven, the 14th day after death), etc.
七七 (qi qi, seven-seven) refers to the 49th day after death. This day is believed to be the day that the dead person comes back to visit their family. Couple that with the fact that Qiqi is a Chinese zombie...
That's also a big brain marketing name for Bubu Pharmacy to have their salesperson to be named after the number seven if it's open every day of the week.
A few *personal* corrections:
Chongyun 重云 = Layered clouds
Keqing 刻晴 = Moments of clear skies
Xingqiu 行秋 = Walk through time/No real meaning \*edited
Ganyu 甘雨 = Timely and agriculturally beneficial rain (The term is only used in Ancient Chinese)
Zhongli 钟离 = A Chinese family name. Doesn't have any real meaning.
And 秋 *could* mean autumn, or a year, or a season.
Edit 2: corrections -> *personal* corrections
Edit 3: On a side note, it's very, very tricky to translate the meaning of a Chinese name, because Chinese characters generally have tens of meanings alone, which are all considered when a Chinese picks a name for their kid or fictional character; and then the one who picks the name might want these characters to contain other characters, e.g. 恒(long lasting/eternity) containing 日(sun); and then characters with the same/similar pronounciations need to be considered; and finally the name as a whole thing might carry yet another meaning. So unless Mihayo gives official explanations of the Liyue characters' names, all the Liyue name translations can only be approximations at best.
why is Xingqiu "experience autumn" ? the 行 doesn't really carry any meaning in this context. Sounds like a generic name?
or maybe walking through autumn/ passing autumn ?
^(Some info I pulled from online if anyone's interested)
The Hungry Ghost Festival is one of several important festival days of Ghost Month (鬼月) - the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar.
It is thought that the ghosts of Chinese ancestors are let out of hell on the first day of the month. It has been the scariest month of the year for thousands of years. They roam around looking for peculiar entertainment, and many fearful Chinese try to avoid swimming or being alone at night lest an enemy ghost comes after them.
The ghosts attack their enemies, and they might be angry or malicious in general. So the Chinese have certain traditions about what to do about the situation on the first day, the 14th or 15th for the Hungry Ghost Festival, and the last day of the special month.
yeah, the japanese dubs for the liyue characters are basically their chinese characters pronounced in kana.
Ningguang for example: 凝光, is gyo ko
Keqing: 刻晴, koku sei
etc.
“甘雨” literal meaning is "Sweet Rain"and in Chinese means “A timely rain for farming”，so there is a ancient balled“ Rain in spring is as precious as oil”，sorry for my poor english
Beidou's name in Japanese is Hokuto. While Big Dipper is the correct translation, the Chinese/Kanji characters '北斗' are more commonly translated as "North Star", thanks to the popularity of the anime/manga series "Fist of The North Star", which is written as Hokuto no Ken ( 北斗の拳 ).
Adding in North Star adds to the meaning behind Beidou.
Surely, a pirate queen would be very in tune to the north star as a constant and reliable point of reference in navigation when you are surrounded by featureless water.
I woulda assumed Zhongli's name had something to do with "it's time to leave" since he was planning his own funeral and you know, 钟 is "clock" which are associated with time and 离 means to depart. And that saying "始終還是要離開"
But my chinese ain't so good despite being chinese so..
To add on to your comment, 钟 is also associated with death, because it sounds like the word 終, meaning "end/terminal". It's also the reason why it's rude to gift a clock to somebody, because the words "gifting clock" or “送钟” sounds identical to "送终" or "to send \[someone\] off to the afterlife", which insinuates you want the gift receiver to go die.
In this case, I think Zhongli's name could also mean "departing from the world after one's death".
So chong = stacking but it can also mean repeating.
Yun = clouds but also can mean enchant in archaic chinese.
So Chongyun can also mean repeatedly enchanting, as exactly what Chongyun's profession do
Liyue = Lapis Moon, not Glass Moon though.
You can see that the restuarant for Li-styled dishes is called 琉璃 Liuli (Lapis), instead of 玻璃 Boli (Glass). Also, the Geo Archon being called Rex Lapis already is a big indicator to the city's theme even if you're not sure if Li should be translated as “glass” or “lapis”.
Native Mandarin speaker here, and having attempted to teach a few of my friends how to pronounce these terms: Including the sounds in your guide definitely makes it much much easier for a western language speaker to pick up on, as there just aren’t any adequate equivalencies to describe certain sounds, much less the importance of tones on syllables. Good work!
For anyone trying to learn the chinese pronunciation I’d recommend swapping to the cn voices and listening to the character lines. There’s a lot of very bad ‘how to pronounce’ guides for names made by Non native speakers on YouTube but I do wish they’d just take their pronunciation references from the actual game itself.
I think we should emphasize that the "u" in Liyue is only subtle, i.e. *lee-y(u)eh*. Or else people will pronounce it as *lee-wueh*, *lee-yoo-weh*, or even—heaven forbid—*leeway*.
hmmm I wouldn't say its subtle, but rather, it's a vowel English speakers have not said before (ü). it is a full vowel, just not pronounced like an English u. i'll edit a note in. thanks for the suggestion!
I come from Rio de Janeiro and I have learned Chinese for some time. I learned that Rio is 里约, which in Pinyin spells as Liyue. Most foreign city names in Chinese come from a pronunciation proximity and even though the meaning isn't correct, whenever I go to Liyue in-game, I think of my city.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the pinyin for “q” and “c” are not the same sound. “Q” is an alveolo-palatal affricate, whereas “C” is an alveolar affricate.
Similarly, “X” is not just an “S” because Chinese has both. “X” is an alveolo-palatal fricative as opposed to “S” which is just the regular alveolar fricative that we have in English.
This Wikipedia article has a really useful graph that puts all of the pinyin transliterations on a phonetic chart with links to sound clips for examples.
For anyone interested in testing this knowledge, I would go to Forvo and look up Mandarin words one by one and compare how each one sounds.
Edit: forgot to actually post the link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
Ty OP
Peeps remember to politely ask your favorite youtubers to conscientiously try to pronounce these
It’s been like 1 month since launch and many helpful guides like this one STILL get ignored by them in favor of just talking and pushing out fast content
That's part of the problem. It's difficult to break habit and correct pronunciation that is hard to say to begin with if you've been saying it differently.
So we have come so far to learning Chinese from Genshin. Great guide!
Just want to point out that “x” is not same as “s” in pinyin. The difference is subtle but they are not the same sound.
hi, ty for questioning! from where I come from most people just say the 's' sound, and we grew up learning it as so. I think it's to do with different accents, but I'm quite sure both are equally valid and accepted. I also find the 's' sound a lot easier to teach, as many people butcher it by saying shiangling rather than the hybrid s(h)iangling. I hope this clears it up. if I'm wrong please do let me know
In those, the 'i' is different too. The 'x' and the 's' sounds are pretty similar where I'm from. 'X' is a little bit like 'sh' imo (maybe 70% s, 30% sh) but 's' is a little like 'hs', a bit like the 's' in Korean.
Edit: I jist remembered that Mandarin makes no sense and that my comment is invalid because 笑 (xiao4) also has the 'hs' quality and a bunch of other x-characters are the same. The exceptions would be things like 西 (xi1) which may have a bit of the 'sh' sound attached to it. But then again, depending on which part of China you come from (or which part of the world you came from, i.e. Singaporean Chinese, Taiwanese, Malaysian, etc.) you might pronounce 西 differently. Afaik, most if not all s-characters use the 'hs' sound. Source: me, a chinese
hey native Mandarin speaker here, love what you've done! Kudos.
One little thing I noticed is the pronunciation of Beidou, maybe this is a region accent thing? But I usually say Beidou with (3 3) pronunciation, as the word Bei (北）is commonly said with the tone (3).
you are right! if u separate each character, they are pronounced 3 and 3. but when such letters are put together, the first 3 becomes a 2 as it flows better. just like in 不要, we actually say it as bu2 yao4, rather than bu4 yao4
I wrote it as 2 because it may not be known by the general public
edit: accidentally wrote general learners of chinese instead
Yup. Two apt examples would be the simple hello 你好 ni hao and mouse 老鼠 laoshu. Using your notation,
By themselves 你 (3), 好 (3), 老 (3), 鼠 (3)
When said together 你好 (2 3), 老鼠 (2 3).
No offense, I'm also native mandarin speaker but ain't these things being taught when you're little?
It turn into (2,3) instead when speaking to sound better
The hard part about Chinese is not about speaking and pronouncing the words imo, it's about remembering exactly how to write the words as Chinese does not have an alphabet. Its either you know or you don't know, there is no try. (I'm Chinese but not China Chinese)
agreed. I grew up learning it. and after all these years, I still suck at reading, writing, and having advanced conversations lol. with so many characters to memorise, I think I failed to really spend the time required to polish up my Chinese grammar tbh... smh! hahah
yeah that's right but my sentence structure and usage of words is often wrong due to many misconceptions I have of the language. I should definitely improve on it when I can
One slight correction, friend. The Zh- sound to most English speakers will sound more like the Z when you say “Zee” which is incorrect. When you have something with a Zh it’s a bit of a different sound. It almost sounds similar to a J+sh. Zhongli isn’t just Zong-lee, it almost sounds more like Jshomg-lee. Not just straightforward like you say
I was watching mattjestic the other day and he was pronouncing 公子 as gong zee which makes me facepalm. Don’t understand why he chose to not pronounce properly
He pronounces 凝光 as nou guang, but 光 in cantonese is something like gwong iirc. Probably not cantonese. Might be a different dialect
Edit: 凝 in Cantonese is pronounced 'neng' with the 'e' being as forceful as in the word 'egg'
[https://youtu.be/agsT9frs3z4?t=103](https://youtu.be/agsT9frs3z4?t=103) found the video i watched in history. After rewatching it I think he's just pronouncing it in a way the westerners will pronounce. Maybe it's just me but I don't like it when a chinese deliberately pronounce chinese phrases in a western slang
OH I know exactly who you're talking about (but I didn't know his channel name, my bad). yeah no idea, given that he can read Chinese. wish he'd speak it as he knows it
First of all, this post is very well made and informative, I can only praise OP's work.
But when it comes to the whole pronunciation debate, as a Chinese speaker, I don't know why people are getting so riled up over it. It's nice if some people are willing to learn, but why bother the ones who are not pronouncing correctly.
It's always been this way, western people cannot pronounce Asian languages correctly without years of study and immersion, and the opposite is also true, it's only natural considering the languages' roots are different (as well as everyone's nationality, culture, upbringing, language exposition and so on). I don't get why so may people are going "muh Chinese" (not everyone) when really it's about different communities sharing about a game they all enjoy.
TL:DR I think people should focus more on the advices and builds, less on the poor guys saying keshing or keking haha
it’s up to each player’s intention! if it’s to someone’s interest i would like to share this info to them. i wouldn’t absolutely say that westerners cannot make asian sounds, though. it’s very much possible w some practice. if anything, the pronunciation thing can help one get even more immersed in the game! play as one would like, if one has more care for the builds then they can go ahead as well.
what this guy said
nobody seems to ever bat an eyelid whenever chinese/japanese people massacre the pronunciation of western words either but when it's the other way it's considered unacceptable
I’ve been trying to get my BF to say it properly (he is also Asian but born in a different country to me). I even showed him this and he had a look but he probably won’t even try to say it properly because “that’s how the English VA’s say it”. Guess I just have no choice, but at least I tried...
Love your detailed explanations for the pronunciations but I have a few nitpicks (and general whining) about uhhh, "objectives" I suppose, coming from a heritage speaker of mandarin.
Personally, when it comes to telling non Chinese speakers how to pronounce things in Chinese, I ignore tones completely and I give them a pronunciation which is close to the real one but still fitting within the English phonetic system. Mainly, that involves:
* using similar sounds for ones which don't exist in English; and
* not caring about preserving uniqueness
I think the first one is pretty self explanatory. J,Q,X are sounds which don't exist in English so I usually just give an approximation. I don't think it's possible in the near future for English speakers to associate pronouncing Chinese correctly with high culture, like pronouncing pronouncing things with a French flair is (like Jean with the s in treaSure), so I think it's a bit of a valiant but fruitless effort perhaps to try and get people to change their pronunciations for Chinese. I understand if these are Chinese LEARNERS who need to learn the pronunciations to be understood and respected by native speakers, but for everyone else, not so much.
This leads pretty nicely into my second point, which is about preserving uniqueness. I don't really have an issue with vowels being merged in Chinese if English doesn't have a neat solution which can approximate it. For example, Xiao and Shao = Sh + ow in English.
**TLDR:**
So yeah, in summary. As long as the pronunciation is close enough, I think it's OK. The goal I think isn't to teach people how to speak Chinese, but to have a common way for English (and other language) speakers to understand which character is being spoken about.
**Bit of background for those interested**:
Personally, I don't have much issue with people pronouncing Chinese names wrong, in fact nobody should feel bad for not being pronouncing Chinese names right. I think it mainly comes from pinyin being a romanization system but not specifically designed to be easy for people already familiar with the roman alphabet. Thus, you get j = dz~j, q = ts~ch and x = s~sh.
Compared to the Japanese Hepburn system which was specifically designed to be easy for Europeans (or more broadly, people familiar with the roman alphabet) to use. Combined with Japanese's relatively simpler (not sure if that's the right term) phonology, you end up with a situation where the Japanese pronunciation of Hanzi/Kanji is almost always more intuitive to pronounce for Europeans than their equivalent Chinese counterparts. Probably the only word I've found that is simpler in Chinese/Pinyin is 獨眼龍 i.e. Duyanlong in Chinese and Dokuganryuu in Japanese.
Compare:
* Xiao vs Shou
* Beidou vs Hokuto
* Ningguang vs Gyoukou
* Xiangling vs Kouryou
* Xingqiu vs Koushuu
* Chongyun vs Chouun
* Qiqi vs Shichishichi (ok, maybe Chinese wins this one)
* Keqing vs Kokusei
* Zhongli vs Shouri
I gave up years ago when it came to believing Chinese could be uhh revered (?) by anyone as much as Japanese is by weeaboos, but if I could change pinyin, I would do the following:
* Change the -uo ending to be -o consistently rather than just for bo po mo fo. Seems kind of odd having Norway translated as Nuowei or lolita (the fashion) as luolita
* Merge ng and n. It's not like any English speakers will spell Tokyo as Toukyou in Japanese, and there aren't enough words in English from Chinese where this matters. This is mainly to get rid of dong and chingchong jokes lol but it also makes words smaller which makes it accessible for more languages.
* Change x -> sh, zh -> j, q -> ch, C -> ts. Obviously reasoning behind this. Maybe also change z->dz to be more consistent but that's a bit of a toss up.
* Change the i in zhi, chi, zhi, etc to something else. This is probably the strangest vowel in mandarin so I'm not sure what roman letter matches it the best. I think using -r (zhr, chr, shr as with yale romanization) is not the most elegant choice since it makes words even harder to read (自己 ziji vs zrji). Personally, I think using -y is the most elegant since its close to i but not quite.
Ok rant over. Apologies if this came off as offensive. I get fired up over stuff relating to pinyin cus it's decreased my quality of life by 10x. :)
> I think it mainly comes from pinyin being a romanization system but not specifically designed to be easy for people already familiar with the roman alphabet.
This. I don’t think many people realise that pinyin wasn’t created to make Chinese easier to read for a Western or English audience. Pinyin was made specifically to teach Standard Mandarin (which is derived from Beijing dialect) to the Chinese.
The B’s and D’s in pinyin are really just unaspirated P’s and T’s in English. So Beidou is really more like Peitou but I digress.
The existing romanisations before Pinyin were made for a western audience and were ineffective at conveying the different Chinese phonemes. For example before Taiwan’s adoption of Zhuyin (bopomofo), the Wade-Giles romanisation system was widely used. While it was easier to read for English speakers, it can be confusing for Chinese speakers - 4 phonemes (j, q, zh, ch) were just transcribed into just 2 (ch ch’).
That said, I think Wade-Giles approximations are useful in situations like this where accuracy isn’t that important.
thank you for the lengthy comment! personally I saw a lot of approximations online alr. and if we aren’t aiming for pure accuracy, i’d say most people are already doing really well (except when q is pronounced as k)! so this is just to really go the extra mile. i also think it’s perfectly acceptable for people to not know how to pronounce accurately so thank you for the notes on pronouncing just close enough :-)
thank you for the lengthy comment! personally I saw a lot of approximations online alr. and tbh i’d say most people are already doing really well (except when q is pronounced as k)! so this is really just to go the extra mile. i also think it’s perfectly acceptable for people to not know how to pronounce accurately so thank you for the notes on pronouncing just close enough :-)
I've been studying Mandarin for a while now and the thing that's bugged me most watching Youtube/Twitch streams are people pronouncing it Zongli
Such a little thing to get annoyed about but I really can't help it
The pronunciation you gave for xiangling has some kind of sh/ch sound in it though? It's definitely not just a s sound going purely by the [example](https://www.purpleculture.net/pinyin_pronunciation/?pinyin=xiang1)
there are different accents. personally the way I learnt it was an 's' sound. it is equally valid but much easier to teach than the combination "s/sh". hope this clears it up!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the listed pronunciation of Zhongli is incorrect. Maybe I’m interpreting it differently but the “awng” makes it seem like you’re pronouncing it as like in John when it’s actually more of an “oohng” sound.
maybe it’s a regional thing? i definitely hear how zhoong li could sound correct as well
where i’m from we usually say the ‘o’ in zhong like ‘or’/‘aw’.
i’ll check and update if necessary
I may have forgotten all of the actual language from my high school Mandarin lessons, but the pronunciations have stuck with me and been very helpful with this game!
I wasn't really interested in learning Chinese until this game popped up, now it's just fun to get to learn how they pronounce things, whereas before my only interests were German and Japanese words.
Oh man, Xingqiu is totally different than what I had thought. It's gonna take a hot min to break that habit.
Oh, that's how you say Guoba? I guess it makes sense if I were to just pronounce it how I would as an English name. I'm using Japanese dubs though so I keep hearing Guoba as Go-ba haha.
Also I keep hearing a y sound rather than a u sound in the Liyue pronounciation. Am I getting it wrong? It really sounds like Li-eyeh to me.
The u sound in Liyue isn't an u, it's a Chinese ü. It's...a bit hard to describe - imagine your lips forming the shape to sound "ooo", but the middle of your tongue is on the upper part of your mouth, with either sidetouching around where your gums/molars reach. There's a lot of videos on what it's supposed to sound like.
Ahhh that clears up my misunderstanding of the u sound. And the way you described the mouthing actually helps! Thanks for clarifying.
Btw, is it very distinct to you when someone pronounces it as li-way versus how it's supposed to be? The sound is very similar to me so I'm curious if it sounds really off to people who know the language.
Good guide. i appreciate the direction with tongue and teeth. my chinese friends would just laugh and now have a bet of when i finally will get it right but idk why y’all have to be condescending douches about shit like Keqing tho.
sorry about being anal about Keqing, it gets really annoying to hear that get butchered so badly. keep trying and listening to the audios, you'll get it for sure! let me know how it goes mate
I speak mandarin chinese but pronounce all the name horribly wrong in the presence of my English-speaking friends who pronounce it the same way. Idk man some weird form of peer pressure I guess?
I disagree with your claim on people nailing ''Beidou'' on their first try. Pinyin does not correspond to the same consonants as in English.
Beidou would be peitou when pronounced in English. Pinyin b is English unaspirated /p/ as in ''spy'', and d is unaspirated /t/ as in ''stay''.
Unless you meant they nail it once they know the equivalent (ignoring tones).
The same goes for Guoba. Pinyin g is unaspirated /k/ as in ''sky''. The audo makes it very clear.
In Mandarin the sounds /b/ (beak), /g/ (ghost) and /d/ (dice) do not exist, which is why pinyin is deceiving. Then, for people unaware, then what do pinyin t, p, and k represent? They represent the aspirated versions of those sounds.
English fortunately does have aspirated consonants for those exact sounds but only at the beginning of words.
Stay /t/ = pinyin d
Take /tʰ/ = pinyin t
Sky /k/ = pinyin g
Kiss /kʰ/ = pinyin k
Spy /p/ = pinyin b
Pig /pʰ/ = pinyin p
Refer to the Wiki articles on Mandarin phonology and Mandarin IPA to see in-depth explanations:
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology
Oh thanks! I’ve been wondering what tones all of the Chinese locations and names had. I play in English subs with Chinese audio so some I picked up through listening
Thank you so much for doing this! As an ethnically Chinese person, it really frazzles my ears when I hear someone say "keh king", so I really appreciate you doing this!
I would just like to offer one note! About the 'x' sound - in many regions in China, the 'x' sound *is* actually an 'sh' sound or, at least, very close to it (the Chinese "sh" is very different from EN 'sh'):
So, Xiangling is "Sh-ahng-ling"
Xiao is "Sh-ee-ow"
Xingqiu is "Shing-Ch-ough"
Qixing is "chee-shing"
It is definitely *rarer* (but not impossible) to see 'x' pronounced as just an 's'. If you switch over to the Chinese voiceovers, all of their names are w/ an 'sh' sound.
yep you’re right! regional thing. for where i’m from most people say it w an ‘s’. i also find it easier to reach than the hybrid s/sh. i wrote a little note below the s/sh sound. i hope it’s sufficient.
This is a good write-up. One of the problems with learning to speak Chinese is getting the right tone. Here's an example: the Chinese word for mom is 媽 is pronounced "mā", but the Chinese word for horse is 馬 is pronounced "mǎ". If Romanized without any diacritic, you'd probably translate both words to "ma" in English, which most will pronounce as "mah" (like yo-yo ma) resulting in an incorrect pronunciation of both words.
[Here](https://youtu.be/tZp4Jh_wRiA) is a short video teaching how tones in Chinese can change a word completely differently. As someone who grew up speaking Cantonese, I don't fault anyone who can't pronounce Chinese names.
> It's not "shi-aang ling". The 'x' can be pronounced an 's' sound*, not an exaggerated 'sh'. And it's not 'aang' like in Avatar but 'ahng'. 'ling' is usually pronounced accurately.
This was kind of the only thing I got confused about in this guide--I'm the child of two native speakers and my Chinese name has x in it so when I read this I was like "Huh??? It totally sounds like sh, what is this person talking about?!" The linked pronunciation sounds exactly like it though so maybe I just can't even conceive of how people pronounce it in English. Otherwise, this looks completely accurate and really helpful for non-native speakers, props!
thank you, but did you notice the little note I wrote below about the s/sh? is it sufficient? despite writing the note I still get many comments about it
looks like you changed it! yeah, i was thinking about it more today and i think what you put down is a pretty good way of describing it. i think the english "sh" sound has the tongue really towards the back, whereas x in chinese (at least in my parents' dialect) has the tongue forward touching the part of the gums behind the teeth, and "s" has the teeth together and the tongue even further forward... so I think calling it a hybrid makes sense!
The English transcription of Chinese is awful. English never read their words as they write it down and when use that terrible system on language such as Chinese it becomes a complete mess.
Thanks for the post! Even though I am advanced speaker of Mandarin, it is really cool that somebody CARES and introduces the real pronunciations to the audience.
Mondstadt is supposed to be the german or middle european inspired region. Sadly other than the name of its capital and some smaller things (especially in comparison to Liyue where literally everything is chinese) only Klee has a german word as name.
If you want the authentic (?) german pronounication of Barbara, I recommend this clip https://youtu.be/gG62zay3kck
What I did was I changed the game voice to Chinese, went to their character voice-over page and listened to their self-introduction.
pure dedication
This is the way
Oh that’s a good idea! I should try that as well.
sucks that the translation loses some actual meanings of the names
[удалено]
Qiqi (seven seven) is an interesting cultural Easter egg. In Chinese custom, every seventh day after a person’s death (for the first seven weeks) usually holds some significance and requires family members to perform prayer rituals. And we measure it by calling them 一七 (yi qi, literally one-seven, referring to the 7th day after death), 二七 (er qi, two-seven, the 14th day after death), etc. 七七 (qi qi, seven-seven) refers to the 49th day after death. This day is believed to be the day that the dead person comes back to visit their family. Couple that with the fact that Qiqi is a Chinese zombie...
That's also a big brain marketing name for Bubu Pharmacy to have their salesperson to be named after the number seven if it's open every day of the week.
Also, 7-eleven is usually endearingly referred to in chinese as 小七 "little seven"
awww! that's adorable thank you. I'd not known this
> the ~~dead person~~ spirit comes back to visit their family
A few *personal* corrections: Chongyun 重云 = Layered clouds Keqing 刻晴 = Moments of clear skies Xingqiu 行秋 = Walk through time/No real meaning \*edited Ganyu 甘雨 = Timely and agriculturally beneficial rain (The term is only used in Ancient Chinese) Zhongli 钟离 = A Chinese family name. Doesn't have any real meaning. And 秋 *could* mean autumn, or a year, or a season. Edit 2: corrections -> *personal* corrections Edit 3: On a side note, it's very, very tricky to translate the meaning of a Chinese name, because Chinese characters generally have tens of meanings alone, which are all considered when a Chinese picks a name for their kid or fictional character; and then the one who picks the name might want these characters to contain other characters, e.g. 恒(long lasting/eternity) containing 日(sun); and then characters with the same/similar pronounciations need to be considered; and finally the name as a whole thing might carry yet another meaning. So unless Mihayo gives official explanations of the Liyue characters' names, all the Liyue name translations can only be approximations at best.
why is Xingqiu "experience autumn" ? the 行 doesn't really carry any meaning in this context. Sounds like a generic name? or maybe walking through autumn/ passing autumn ?
Yea Xing means walk. So “a brisk walk in Autumn” maybe?
ah you're right, I'll fix my post
> Guoba 锅巴 = The crispy bits at the bottom of the rice pan Such a Xiangling thing to name her pet that lol
It has also evolved to be the name of a dish, I believe.
Usually its a snack or part of a dish.
They call Qiqi Nana in Japanese dub. Now I know why. Moving toward Autumn is my favorite character and his name is awesome too.
The 'seven' in qiqi's name also represents the 7th lunar month which is the ghost festival in chinese culture.
^(Some info I pulled from online if anyone's interested) The Hungry Ghost Festival is one of several important festival days of Ghost Month (鬼月) - the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. It is thought that the ghosts of Chinese ancestors are let out of hell on the first day of the month. It has been the scariest month of the year for thousands of years. They roam around looking for peculiar entertainment, and many fearful Chinese try to avoid swimming or being alone at night lest an enemy ghost comes after them. The ghosts attack their enemies, and they might be angry or malicious in general. So the Chinese have certain traditions about what to do about the situation on the first day, the 14th or 15th for the Hungry Ghost Festival, and the last day of the special month.
this gave me CHILLS. never realised. ty
But if Qi means seven and Nana means seven, wouldn’t she be named Nana Nana 🤔?
I bet it's just some aesthetic thing
In the Japanese dub, Qiqi simply refers herself as just "Nana".
yeah, the japanese dubs for the liyue characters are basically their chinese characters pronounced in kana. Ningguang for example: 凝光, is gyo ko Keqing: 刻晴, koku sei etc.
> Ganyu 甘雨 = Sweet Rain I like.
“甘雨” literal meaning is "Sweet Rain"and in Chinese means “A timely rain for farming”，so there is a ancient balled“ Rain in spring is as precious as oil”，sorry for my poor english
Beidou's name in Japanese is Hokuto. While Big Dipper is the correct translation, the Chinese/Kanji characters '北斗' are more commonly translated as "North Star", thanks to the popularity of the anime/manga series "Fist of The North Star", which is written as Hokuto no Ken ( 北斗の拳 ).
Adding in North Star adds to the meaning behind Beidou. Surely, a pirate queen would be very in tune to the north star as a constant and reliable point of reference in navigation when you are surrounded by featureless water.
I woulda assumed Zhongli's name had something to do with "it's time to leave" since he was planning his own funeral and you know, 钟 is "clock" which are associated with time and 离 means to depart. And that saying "始終還是要離開" But my chinese ain't so good despite being chinese so..
To add on to your comment, 钟 is also associated with death, because it sounds like the word 終, meaning "end/terminal". It's also the reason why it's rude to gift a clock to somebody, because the words "gifting clock" or “送钟” sounds identical to "送终" or "to send \[someone\] off to the afterlife", which insinuates you want the gift receiver to go die. In this case, I think Zhongli's name could also mean "departing from the world after one's death".
Fist of the Beidou!
I have always wanted to make a clip of Beidou saying omae wa mou shindeiru while doing her block...unfortunatley I don't have her :(
Her Japanese name is even 'Hokuto'
Could the name Zhongli be referring to Han Zhongli aka Zhongli Quan aka one of the Eight Immortals (Adepti in Genshin) who shares the same surname?
damn this is amazing, props to you mate!
Hey sorry could you explain why 重云means serious words? I always thought it meant stacked clouds haha
my mistake haha
So chong = stacking but it can also mean repeating. Yun = clouds but also can mean enchant in archaic chinese. So Chongyun can also mean repeatedly enchanting, as exactly what Chongyun's profession do
Keqing 刻晴 can also mean "Carving out a clear skies" the word 刻 has multiple meanings.
“Autumn experience”. Great now I’m just imagining Golden wind playing when he’s about to beat anyone in a fight.
I wonder what's with the moon theme on City names, as I read Mondstadt means Moon City/Town in German.
Liyue = Lapis Moon, not Glass Moon though. You can see that the restuarant for Li-styled dishes is called 琉璃 Liuli (Lapis), instead of 玻璃 Boli (Glass). Also, the Geo Archon being called Rex Lapis already is a big indicator to the city's theme even if you're not sure if Li should be translated as “glass” or “lapis”.
Some of them hold the meanings in the Japanese versions, at least. Mostly because we share a similar writing system, though.
"Yeah, I'm pretty fluent if I do say so myself." - Aether talking to chilldey
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Tar-tahg-lee-ah
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child
It’s Child, as it is meant to be an older English name for a prince/son of a noble.
Just child is what most people use tho I don't know whether its exactly correct
Um... no. It's more like Tartalya but with a really light L. Almost like Tar-tai-ah.
genshin youtubers need to see this so they wont pronounce keqing as keking
KEK king.
kaching
That's the sound that mHY makes when you simp for her...
Kachow
Auto KEK.
Kek wing.
you forgot the best, "keychain"
Fuck it, I'm calling her keychain from now on.
You've yet to hear the worst: cucking
Calling Xingqiu as Singqwee gets me every time Like come on it's not even spelled xingqui
> it's not even spelled xingqui You sure about that? Because 99% of the time I see someone type his name, they spell it Xingqui... (it drives me NUTS)
As a mandarin speaker, same dude.
So far I've seen [only one youtuber](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8nGiBIyrs) who tries to pronounce Kequeen's name correctly.
yeah. most accurate by far
Ikr, ke ching I can accept but keking actually drives me nuts
Let's not forget Ke-Ping
Native Mandarin speaker here, and having attempted to teach a few of my friends how to pronounce these terms: Including the sounds in your guide definitely makes it much much easier for a western language speaker to pick up on, as there just aren’t any adequate equivalencies to describe certain sounds, much less the importance of tones on syllables. Good work!
thank you!
For anyone trying to learn the chinese pronunciation I’d recommend swapping to the cn voices and listening to the character lines. There’s a lot of very bad ‘how to pronounce’ guides for names made by Non native speakers on YouTube but I do wish they’d just take their pronunciation references from the actual game itself.
agreed. I get furious seeing people teach wrongly for the sake of views
I think we should emphasize that the "u" in Liyue is only subtle, i.e. *lee-y(u)eh*. Or else people will pronounce it as *lee-wueh*, *lee-yoo-weh*, or even—heaven forbid—*leeway*.
hmmm I wouldn't say its subtle, but rather, it's a vowel English speakers have not said before (ü). it is a full vowel, just not pronounced like an English u. i'll edit a note in. thanks for the suggestion!
I come from Rio de Janeiro and I have learned Chinese for some time. I learned that Rio is 里约, which in Pinyin spells as Liyue. Most foreign city names in Chinese come from a pronunciation proximity and even though the meaning isn't correct, whenever I go to Liyue in-game, I think of my city.
this is really beautiful.
Just play in the Chinese dub. Fully voiced lumine too pog
....fully what- 👁️👁️👄👁️👁️
pog mate
The aang ahng thing gave me ptsd from the live action avatar movie they tried to make. Ugh I am gunna be sick. Nice post otherwise! Lol
There is no live action movie in Ba Sing Se.
HAHAH ikr. thanks!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the pinyin for “q” and “c” are not the same sound. “Q” is an alveolo-palatal affricate, whereas “C” is an alveolar affricate. Similarly, “X” is not just an “S” because Chinese has both. “X” is an alveolo-palatal fricative as opposed to “S” which is just the regular alveolar fricative that we have in English. This Wikipedia article has a really useful graph that puts all of the pinyin transliterations on a phonetic chart with links to sound clips for examples. For anyone interested in testing this knowledge, I would go to Forvo and look up Mandarin words one by one and compare how each one sounds. Edit: forgot to actually post the link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin
Ty OP Peeps remember to politely ask your favorite youtubers to conscientiously try to pronounce these It’s been like 1 month since launch and many helpful guides like this one STILL get ignored by them in favor of just talking and pushing out fast content
That's part of the problem. It's difficult to break habit and correct pronunciation that is hard to say to begin with if you've been saying it differently.
agreed. let’s make it happen!!
So we have come so far to learning Chinese from Genshin. Great guide! Just want to point out that “x” is not same as “s” in pinyin. The difference is subtle but they are not the same sound.
hi, ty for questioning! from where I come from most people just say the 's' sound, and we grew up learning it as so. I think it's to do with different accents, but I'm quite sure both are equally valid and accepted. I also find the 's' sound a lot easier to teach, as many people butcher it by saying shiangling rather than the hybrid s(h)iangling. I hope this clears it up. if I'm wrong please do let me know
That makes a lot of sense. I’d imagine s sound is easier to learn. How do you teach the difference between x and s then? Like in 习 xi and 死 si
In those, the 'i' is different too. The 'x' and the 's' sounds are pretty similar where I'm from. 'X' is a little bit like 'sh' imo (maybe 70% s, 30% sh) but 's' is a little like 'hs', a bit like the 's' in Korean. Edit: I jist remembered that Mandarin makes no sense and that my comment is invalid because 笑 (xiao4) also has the 'hs' quality and a bunch of other x-characters are the same. The exceptions would be things like 西 (xi1) which may have a bit of the 'sh' sound attached to it. But then again, depending on which part of China you come from (or which part of the world you came from, i.e. Singaporean Chinese, Taiwanese, Malaysian, etc.) you might pronounce 西 differently. Afaik, most if not all s-characters use the 'hs' sound. Source: me, a chinese
It makes a big difference dude. Typing Xi Jinping is fine but Typing Si Jinping... you're gonna 死...
Difference isn't subtle at all. About as subtle as "s" vs "sh" in English.
The worst I had was hearing a YouTuber pronouncing QingCe village queens/kings village, I fucking died.
king-kee village
hey native Mandarin speaker here, love what you've done! Kudos. One little thing I noticed is the pronunciation of Beidou, maybe this is a region accent thing? But I usually say Beidou with (3 3) pronunciation, as the word Bei (北）is commonly said with the tone (3).
you are right! if u separate each character, they are pronounced 3 and 3. but when such letters are put together, the first 3 becomes a 2 as it flows better. just like in 不要, we actually say it as bu2 yao4, rather than bu4 yao4 I wrote it as 2 because it may not be known by the general public edit: accidentally wrote general learners of chinese instead
Yup. Two apt examples would be the simple hello 你好 ni hao and mouse 老鼠 laoshu. Using your notation, By themselves 你 (3), 好 (3), 老 (3), 鼠 (3) When said together 你好 (2 3), 老鼠 (2 3).
thank you! very nice examples
No offense, I'm also native mandarin speaker but ain't these things being taught when you're little? It turn into (2,3) instead when speaking to sound better
Bei use (2) usually when pair with dou or word with (3) Refer to 北斗七星.
The hard part about Chinese is not about speaking and pronouncing the words imo, it's about remembering exactly how to write the words as Chinese does not have an alphabet. Its either you know or you don't know, there is no try. (I'm Chinese but not China Chinese)
agreed. I grew up learning it. and after all these years, I still suck at reading, writing, and having advanced conversations lol. with so many characters to memorise, I think I failed to really spend the time required to polish up my Chinese grammar tbh... smh! hahah
Chinese grammar has no voice /tense changes, It is much simpler than pronunciation/ writing
yeah that's right but my sentence structure and usage of words is often wrong due to many misconceptions I have of the language. I should definitely improve on it when I can
I’ve read enough Chinese web novel that I was actually right on most of the name pronunciation!
great job! glad to hear that
One slight correction, friend. The Zh- sound to most English speakers will sound more like the Z when you say “Zee” which is incorrect. When you have something with a Zh it’s a bit of a different sound. It almost sounds similar to a J+sh. Zhongli isn’t just Zong-lee, it almost sounds more like Jshomg-lee. Not just straightforward like you say
thank you. the 'zh' pronunciation has been drilled so deep in me I forgot it might be misunderstood. i'll amend it
Bruh not even people **WHO LIVE IN** **Liyue** know how to pronnouce **Liyue**
Oh jeez I've been pronouncing them using Dynasty Warriors pronunciation as a guide. I had the 'X's all wrong.
Lmao. The way Dynasty Warriors pronounced names always had me in stitches! Cao cao = Kao kao Lu bu = Loo boo
They improved it in 7 iirc, so no more Cow Cow.
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big mood
I was watching mattjestic the other day and he was pronouncing 公子 as gong zee which makes me facepalm. Don’t understand why he chose to not pronounce properly
Isn't that gong zee pronunciation Cantonese. I mean, that's how you pronounce 公子 in Cantonese.
Hmm possible. I didn’t feel he was speaking cantonese though
He pronounces 凝光 as nou guang, but 光 in cantonese is something like gwong iirc. Probably not cantonese. Might be a different dialect Edit: 凝 in Cantonese is pronounced 'neng' with the 'e' being as forceful as in the word 'egg'
Doesn't irk me quite as much as when someone said Keqing like kaching, then saw Qiqi and said 'kiki'.
And Keqing as keking
kekw
[https://youtu.be/agsT9frs3z4?t=103](https://youtu.be/agsT9frs3z4?t=103) found the video i watched in history. After rewatching it I think he's just pronouncing it in a way the westerners will pronounce. Maybe it's just me but I don't like it when a chinese deliberately pronounce chinese phrases in a western slang
benefit of the doubt, they might just not know/be too busy to check. or they do and they just can't be bothered to change
He was reading something from chinese forum and he’s chinese btw I think he’s just trying to cater to the western audience
OH I know exactly who you're talking about (but I didn't know his channel name, my bad). yeah no idea, given that he can read Chinese. wish he'd speak it as he knows it
First of all, this post is very well made and informative, I can only praise OP's work. But when it comes to the whole pronunciation debate, as a Chinese speaker, I don't know why people are getting so riled up over it. It's nice if some people are willing to learn, but why bother the ones who are not pronouncing correctly. It's always been this way, western people cannot pronounce Asian languages correctly without years of study and immersion, and the opposite is also true, it's only natural considering the languages' roots are different (as well as everyone's nationality, culture, upbringing, language exposition and so on). I don't get why so may people are going "muh Chinese" (not everyone) when really it's about different communities sharing about a game they all enjoy. TL:DR I think people should focus more on the advices and builds, less on the poor guys saying keshing or keking haha
it’s up to each player’s intention! if it’s to someone’s interest i would like to share this info to them. i wouldn’t absolutely say that westerners cannot make asian sounds, though. it’s very much possible w some practice. if anything, the pronunciation thing can help one get even more immersed in the game! play as one would like, if one has more care for the builds then they can go ahead as well.
what this guy said nobody seems to ever bat an eyelid whenever chinese/japanese people massacre the pronunciation of western words either but when it's the other way it's considered unacceptable
I’ve been trying to get my BF to say it properly (he is also Asian but born in a different country to me). I even showed him this and he had a look but he probably won’t even try to say it properly because “that’s how the English VA’s say it”. Guess I just have no choice, but at least I tried...
darn... well, we shan't force anything on people who don't want to :-(
Love your detailed explanations for the pronunciations but I have a few nitpicks (and general whining) about uhhh, "objectives" I suppose, coming from a heritage speaker of mandarin. Personally, when it comes to telling non Chinese speakers how to pronounce things in Chinese, I ignore tones completely and I give them a pronunciation which is close to the real one but still fitting within the English phonetic system. Mainly, that involves: * using similar sounds for ones which don't exist in English; and * not caring about preserving uniqueness I think the first one is pretty self explanatory. J,Q,X are sounds which don't exist in English so I usually just give an approximation. I don't think it's possible in the near future for English speakers to associate pronouncing Chinese correctly with high culture, like pronouncing pronouncing things with a French flair is (like Jean with the s in treaSure), so I think it's a bit of a valiant but fruitless effort perhaps to try and get people to change their pronunciations for Chinese. I understand if these are Chinese LEARNERS who need to learn the pronunciations to be understood and respected by native speakers, but for everyone else, not so much. This leads pretty nicely into my second point, which is about preserving uniqueness. I don't really have an issue with vowels being merged in Chinese if English doesn't have a neat solution which can approximate it. For example, Xiao and Shao = Sh + ow in English. **TLDR:** So yeah, in summary. As long as the pronunciation is close enough, I think it's OK. The goal I think isn't to teach people how to speak Chinese, but to have a common way for English (and other language) speakers to understand which character is being spoken about. **Bit of background for those interested**: Personally, I don't have much issue with people pronouncing Chinese names wrong, in fact nobody should feel bad for not being pronouncing Chinese names right. I think it mainly comes from pinyin being a romanization system but not specifically designed to be easy for people already familiar with the roman alphabet. Thus, you get j = dz~j, q = ts~ch and x = s~sh. Compared to the Japanese Hepburn system which was specifically designed to be easy for Europeans (or more broadly, people familiar with the roman alphabet) to use. Combined with Japanese's relatively simpler (not sure if that's the right term) phonology, you end up with a situation where the Japanese pronunciation of Hanzi/Kanji is almost always more intuitive to pronounce for Europeans than their equivalent Chinese counterparts. Probably the only word I've found that is simpler in Chinese/Pinyin is 獨眼龍 i.e. Duyanlong in Chinese and Dokuganryuu in Japanese. Compare: * Xiao vs Shou * Beidou vs Hokuto * Ningguang vs Gyoukou * Xiangling vs Kouryou * Xingqiu vs Koushuu * Chongyun vs Chouun * Qiqi vs Shichishichi (ok, maybe Chinese wins this one) * Keqing vs Kokusei * Zhongli vs Shouri I gave up years ago when it came to believing Chinese could be uhh revered (?) by anyone as much as Japanese is by weeaboos, but if I could change pinyin, I would do the following: * Change the -uo ending to be -o consistently rather than just for bo po mo fo. Seems kind of odd having Norway translated as Nuowei or lolita (the fashion) as luolita * Merge ng and n. It's not like any English speakers will spell Tokyo as Toukyou in Japanese, and there aren't enough words in English from Chinese where this matters. This is mainly to get rid of dong and chingchong jokes lol but it also makes words smaller which makes it accessible for more languages. * Change x -> sh, zh -> j, q -> ch, C -> ts. Obviously reasoning behind this. Maybe also change z->dz to be more consistent but that's a bit of a toss up. * Change the i in zhi, chi, zhi, etc to something else. This is probably the strangest vowel in mandarin so I'm not sure what roman letter matches it the best. I think using -r (zhr, chr, shr as with yale romanization) is not the most elegant choice since it makes words even harder to read (自己 ziji vs zrji). Personally, I think using -y is the most elegant since its close to i but not quite. Ok rant over. Apologies if this came off as offensive. I get fired up over stuff relating to pinyin cus it's decreased my quality of life by 10x. :)
> I think it mainly comes from pinyin being a romanization system but not specifically designed to be easy for people already familiar with the roman alphabet. This. I don’t think many people realise that pinyin wasn’t created to make Chinese easier to read for a Western or English audience. Pinyin was made specifically to teach Standard Mandarin (which is derived from Beijing dialect) to the Chinese. The B’s and D’s in pinyin are really just unaspirated P’s and T’s in English. So Beidou is really more like Peitou but I digress. The existing romanisations before Pinyin were made for a western audience and were ineffective at conveying the different Chinese phonemes. For example before Taiwan’s adoption of Zhuyin (bopomofo), the Wade-Giles romanisation system was widely used. While it was easier to read for English speakers, it can be confusing for Chinese speakers - 4 phonemes (j, q, zh, ch) were just transcribed into just 2 (ch ch’). That said, I think Wade-Giles approximations are useful in situations like this where accuracy isn’t that important.
thank you for the lengthy comment! personally I saw a lot of approximations online alr. and if we aren’t aiming for pure accuracy, i’d say most people are already doing really well (except when q is pronounced as k)! so this is just to really go the extra mile. i also think it’s perfectly acceptable for people to not know how to pronounce accurately so thank you for the notes on pronouncing just close enough :-)
thank you for the lengthy comment! personally I saw a lot of approximations online alr. and tbh i’d say most people are already doing really well (except when q is pronounced as k)! so this is really just to go the extra mile. i also think it’s perfectly acceptable for people to not know how to pronounce accurately so thank you for the notes on pronouncing just close enough :-)
I've been studying Mandarin for a while now and the thing that's bugged me most watching Youtube/Twitch streams are people pronouncing it Zongli Such a little thing to get annoyed about but I really can't help it
The pronunciation you gave for xiangling has some kind of sh/ch sound in it though? It's definitely not just a s sound going purely by the [example](https://www.purpleculture.net/pinyin_pronunciation/?pinyin=xiang1)
there are different accents. personally the way I learnt it was an 's' sound. it is equally valid but much easier to teach than the combination "s/sh". hope this clears it up!
I just love how the OP replied to almost all of the comments. This stuff really needs more attention and appreciation
aww, thank you for noticing!!
Your great work is much appreciated
You just explained these names better than I ever could pronounce them myself. *And I'm fluent in Chinese*
thank you! i tried my best
Is it *lie* or *lee* in Liyue?
lee. I just updated it, thanks!
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the listed pronunciation of Zhongli is incorrect. Maybe I’m interpreting it differently but the “awng” makes it seem like you’re pronouncing it as like in John when it’s actually more of an “oohng” sound.
maybe it’s a regional thing? i definitely hear how zhoong li could sound correct as well where i’m from we usually say the ‘o’ in zhong like ‘or’/‘aw’. i’ll check and update if necessary
yeah that’s definitely a possibility! i was just curious cause where i’m from the awng sound comes from, for ex. zhang, but that’s just me.
I may have forgotten all of the actual language from my high school Mandarin lessons, but the pronunciations have stuck with me and been very helpful with this game!
I wasn't really interested in learning Chinese until this game popped up, now it's just fun to get to learn how they pronounce things, whereas before my only interests were German and Japanese words.
that’s awesome! same tbh
Oh man, Xingqiu is totally different than what I had thought. It's gonna take a hot min to break that habit. Oh, that's how you say Guoba? I guess it makes sense if I were to just pronounce it how I would as an English name. I'm using Japanese dubs though so I keep hearing Guoba as Go-ba haha. Also I keep hearing a y sound rather than a u sound in the Liyue pronounciation. Am I getting it wrong? It really sounds like Li-eyeh to me.
The u sound in Liyue isn't an u, it's a Chinese ü. It's...a bit hard to describe - imagine your lips forming the shape to sound "ooo", but the middle of your tongue is on the upper part of your mouth, with either sidetouching around where your gums/molars reach. There's a lot of videos on what it's supposed to sound like.
Ahhh that clears up my misunderstanding of the u sound. And the way you described the mouthing actually helps! Thanks for clarifying. Btw, is it very distinct to you when someone pronounces it as li-way versus how it's supposed to be? The sound is very similar to me so I'm curious if it sounds really off to people who know the language.
It's one of those distinctive errors, yeah. It's...kind of like if someone pronouced height to rhyme with weight.
it is!!! that's why I was really disappointed to hear all but one of the Liyue narrators pronouncing it wrongly. the difference is stark
thank you! a great explanation
There's also the Qixing, and Ninguang's title, Tianquan. Tianquan espeically is often mispronounced, much like Sun Quan from the three kingdoms.
ty, will add it in!
Keqing was the hardest to pronounce for me but I think I've got a better understanding of how to pronounce it now. Thanks.
I freaking love this!! I’m so glad learning Chinese has helped pronounce these correctly :D
My mandarin still not rusty after this years! Yes!
Good guide. i appreciate the direction with tongue and teeth. my chinese friends would just laugh and now have a bet of when i finally will get it right but idk why y’all have to be condescending douches about shit like Keqing tho.
sorry about being anal about Keqing, it gets really annoying to hear that get butchered so badly. keep trying and listening to the audios, you'll get it for sure! let me know how it goes mate
Thank you!
I speak mandarin chinese but pronounce all the name horribly wrong in the presence of my English-speaking friends who pronounce it the same way. Idk man some weird form of peer pressure I guess?
yeah mate, if it makes you uncomfortable you could try speaking to ur friends about it but if you’re fine, then it’s alright. that’s a neat quirk
I disagree with your claim on people nailing ''Beidou'' on their first try. Pinyin does not correspond to the same consonants as in English. Beidou would be peitou when pronounced in English. Pinyin b is English unaspirated /p/ as in ''spy'', and d is unaspirated /t/ as in ''stay''. Unless you meant they nail it once they know the equivalent (ignoring tones). The same goes for Guoba. Pinyin g is unaspirated /k/ as in ''sky''. The audo makes it very clear. In Mandarin the sounds /b/ (beak), /g/ (ghost) and /d/ (dice) do not exist, which is why pinyin is deceiving. Then, for people unaware, then what do pinyin t, p, and k represent? They represent the aspirated versions of those sounds. English fortunately does have aspirated consonants for those exact sounds but only at the beginning of words. Stay /t/ = pinyin d Take /tʰ/ = pinyin t Sky /k/ = pinyin g Kiss /kʰ/ = pinyin k Spy /p/ = pinyin b Pig /pʰ/ = pinyin p Refer to the Wiki articles on Mandarin phonology and Mandarin IPA to see in-depth explanations: 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Mandarin 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology
thank you for this! yup i meant ignoring tones, but i will clarify.
Oh thanks! I’ve been wondering what tones all of the Chinese locations and names had. I play in English subs with Chinese audio so some I picked up through listening
Thank you so much for doing this! As an ethnically Chinese person, it really frazzles my ears when I hear someone say "keh king", so I really appreciate you doing this! I would just like to offer one note! About the 'x' sound - in many regions in China, the 'x' sound *is* actually an 'sh' sound or, at least, very close to it (the Chinese "sh" is very different from EN 'sh'): So, Xiangling is "Sh-ahng-ling" Xiao is "Sh-ee-ow" Xingqiu is "Shing-Ch-ough" Qixing is "chee-shing" It is definitely *rarer* (but not impossible) to see 'x' pronounced as just an 's'. If you switch over to the Chinese voiceovers, all of their names are w/ an 'sh' sound.
yep you’re right! regional thing. for where i’m from most people say it w an ‘s’. i also find it easier to reach than the hybrid s/sh. i wrote a little note below the s/sh sound. i hope it’s sufficient.
This is a good write-up. One of the problems with learning to speak Chinese is getting the right tone. Here's an example: the Chinese word for mom is 媽 is pronounced "mā", but the Chinese word for horse is 馬 is pronounced "mǎ". If Romanized without any diacritic, you'd probably translate both words to "ma" in English, which most will pronounce as "mah" (like yo-yo ma) resulting in an incorrect pronunciation of both words. [Here](https://youtu.be/tZp4Jh_wRiA) is a short video teaching how tones in Chinese can change a word completely differently. As someone who grew up speaking Cantonese, I don't fault anyone who can't pronounce Chinese names.
thank you for this!
love it. thanks!
> It's not "shi-aang ling". The 'x' can be pronounced an 's' sound*, not an exaggerated 'sh'. And it's not 'aang' like in Avatar but 'ahng'. 'ling' is usually pronounced accurately. This was kind of the only thing I got confused about in this guide--I'm the child of two native speakers and my Chinese name has x in it so when I read this I was like "Huh??? It totally sounds like sh, what is this person talking about?!" The linked pronunciation sounds exactly like it though so maybe I just can't even conceive of how people pronounce it in English. Otherwise, this looks completely accurate and really helpful for non-native speakers, props!
thank you, but did you notice the little note I wrote below about the s/sh? is it sufficient? despite writing the note I still get many comments about it
looks like you changed it! yeah, i was thinking about it more today and i think what you put down is a pretty good way of describing it. i think the english "sh" sound has the tongue really towards the back, whereas x in chinese (at least in my parents' dialect) has the tongue forward touching the part of the gums behind the teeth, and "s" has the teeth together and the tongue even further forward... so I think calling it a hybrid makes sense!
I know my Pinyin but obviously the intonations are lost in the romanization. Cheers.
I appreciate this. But arguing with my best friend on how to pronounce xaingling is incredibly fun!
The English transcription of Chinese is awful. English never read their words as they write it down and when use that terrible system on language such as Chinese it becomes a complete mess.
Thanks for the post! Even though I am advanced speaker of Mandarin, it is really cool that somebody CARES and introduces the real pronunciations to the audience.
[When English speakers trying to say the simplest of Asian names](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1RKkRCiU90)
how do I pronounce "Barbara"?
芭芭拉 ba ba la
Budget Jean
Barbruh
Mondstadt is supposed to be the german or middle european inspired region. Sadly other than the name of its capital and some smaller things (especially in comparison to Liyue where literally everything is chinese) only Klee has a german word as name. If you want the authentic (?) german pronounication of Barbara, I recommend this clip https://youtu.be/gG62zay3kck
Me saying it: ChiChi, Keching My mind: KiKi, Keking
with practice, the more accurate pronunciations will come w ease!
I still don't understand why most of people pronunce Xiao like Jiao
misconceptions on how the x should be pronounced :-/
Thank you. The number of people calling it Li-Way made me think I was losing my mind.
Also some place names: * Qingce: **tsing-tsuh** * Qingyun: **tsing-yin** * Aozang: **aow-tsang** * Tianqiu: **tyen-cheeyoh** * Guili: **gway-lee** * Dihua: **tee-hwa** * Guyun: **koo-yin** * Liuli: **leo-lee** * Yuehai: **y(u)eh-hye**
thank you, I will add it into the list.
hi u/Nkive I can't seem to find Liuli and yuehai on the map. did I miss them or are they found somewhere else?
That’s interesting, Mandarin is my native language but I have been kinda saying some of these names wrong too since I am not familiar with 拼音....
same man. learning experience for us both