Taipei MRT stations — a list giving Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks

outline map of the Taipei MRT systemWhen Taipei’s MRT system — which is mainly a subway system but which also has elevated portions and even sections at ground level — opened, most of its signage was in bastardized Wade-Giles, with the “English” pronunciation of the station names broadcast in the cars resembling a hideous parody of the speech of an especially clueless foreign visitor. Fortunately, the romanization was switched to Hanyu Pinyin and the English announcements were re-recorded to give pronunciations that much more accurately reflected the Mandarin station names.

Unfortunately, English announcements have been added in recent months that feature a high-pitched voice that is probably intended to be ke’ai (“cute”) but which is actually cloying. These must die, die, die! But I’m straying from the main topic.

Anyway, the MRT’s current signage, nicely designed as most of it is, does not give any tone marks. Nor does it provide Pinyin for the station names that are translated into English. And there are also a few mistakes that really need to be corrected in the official forms of the names.

So, I have updated and added some minor corrections to the lists I put up long ago on my first Web site, Romanization.com. The new versions, here on Pinyin Info, are here: Taipei MRT stations in Chinese characters, Hanyu Pinyin, and some English.

3 thoughts on “Taipei MRT stations — a list giving Hanyu Pinyin with tone marks

  1. I am really waiting to see what will happen to the signs at the CKS Memorial Hall Station. First, will they actually change the name to Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall or Taiwan Democracy Park? Second, will they stop using the brass lettering and install the same style of sign used at every other MRT station?

  2. Since the Taipei City Government, which could hardly be said to be behind the name change, is the power behind the names assigned to MRT stations, I’m not expecting any alterations soon. But if they do change the name, they damn sure better fix the Pinyin mistakes this time.

    By the way, David, for some reason my spam catcher has sent at least two comments of yours into my spam bin. So if you ever submit anything and it doesn’t show up on the site soon, e-mail me and let me know so I can dig it out and make sure it gets posted properly.

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