Re: intrinsic advantage of Latin alphabet over bopomofo (for Chinese)??

On 3月29日, 午前8:56, LEE Sau Dan <dan...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Oliver" == Oliver Cromm <lispamat...@xxxxxxxx> writes:

>> Maybe, they find the Romaji more screwy, because it is unable
>> to tell homonyms apart.

Oliver> It is a popular sport in Japan to laugh about non-locals
Oliver> who don't know the pronunciation of local villages. It
Oliver> doesn't always help when asking for directions.

It also sounded funny to me when some Westerners pronounced the place
name <u-e-no> like (English) "we know".

Here's an example of what he meant (and he was talking about Japanese
non-locals, not non-Japanese non-locals):

Let's say you go to 向日町. Now, you're armed with the readings for each
of the characters and you're trying to decide how to put them together
so that you can ask about it if you have to, or talk about it if you
want to. You know that 向 can be read "KOU, mu-ku, mu-keru, mu-kau, mu-
kou" for general use and has the name readings "kou, hisa, muka,
mukau, muki, muke." You also know that 日 has the readings "NICHI,
JITSU, hi, ka" for general use and the name readings "aki, ka, haru,
hi, hiru." The only thing after figuring which combinations of those
readings to use is trying to decide whether 町 is "machi" or "CHOU." So
how do you read it? Maybe "Mukainichi" or "Mukaibi" or "Mukoujitsu" or
"Hisabi" are plausible. Then you still have the question of "machi"
vs. "CHOU," but if you get that wrong you'll probably just be laughed
at and they'll know what you mean. However, you still have to get the
first part. Turns out it's read "Mukou-machi." What you have is a
reading where only the first character indicates the reading, and the
second character is used purely for meaning and contributes nothing to
the reading.

I defy anyone who doesn't already know it to come up with the proper
reading for 十三 (station name on the JR Line) without looking it up.
Then I defy anyone who doesn't already know it to come up with the
proper reading for 十三里 without looking it up. Here are the readings
for each of the characters:

十: JUU, JI', too, to <for names>: kazu, shige, jitsu, ju, juu, so,
tada, to, tou, tomi, hisashi, miti, mitsu, mitsuru
三: SAN, mi (mi-tsu, mit-tsu) <for names>: kazu, ko, sa, za, sabu,
zabu, samu, san, zan, so, sou, zou, tada, nao, mi, mitsu, miru
里: RI, sato <for names>: sato, satoshi, nori, ri

Actually you can ignore the readings listed before the name readings.
There are repeats in each case anyway. Can anyone say with confidence
that 十三 is "X" and 十三里 is "Y?"

By the way, instead of pronouncing Ueno as "we know," how about if
someone pronouced it "jouya" or "kamino" (doubt that'd happen in
reality, as it's a famous place, but it's possible given the readings
of the characters)?

.

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