The introduction to the new Lonely Planet Mandarin phrasebook begins, “It may surprise you to learn that Mandarin is not really the name of a language.” Then comes the usual nonsense about “dialects.” <\/p>\n
Talk about getting off to a bad start! <\/p>\n
The book takes a few more wrong turns. First, it drops Hanyu Pinyin altogether in favor of a Lonely Planet romanization that seems to have been created for this volume. <\/p>\n
For example, “wǒr hwáy‧shwōr ēe‧dyěn”<\/span> for “wǒ huí shuō yīdiǎn”<\/span>.<\/p>\n “Wor”? “Shwor”? The whole book<\/i> is like this, making the unwary traveller speak like a parody of a native of Beijing, which is not<\/i> the way most people speak Mandarin. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The introduction to the new Lonely Planet Mandarin phrasebook begins, “It may surprise you to learn that Mandarin is not really the name of a language.” Then comes the usual nonsense about “dialects.” Talk about getting off to a bad … Continue reading