Pinyin News

Xu Xudong (徐旭東/徐旭东), a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a professor at Central China Normal University in Wuhan, is advocating that public school...

https://pinyin.info/news/2024/schools-should-spend-more-time-teaching-pinyin-prc-politician/

Japanese newspapers are reporting that Japan will officially switch from Kunrei-shiki romanization to Hepburn romanization. In a front-page column last week, the Asahi Shimbun said, “A draft re...

https://pinyin.info/news/2024/japan-to-switch-official-romanization-from-kunrei-shiki-to-hepburn/

The University of Hawai’i Press is having a sale, with deep discounts on many titles, including three great books from Pinyin.info’s list of recommended readings. ABC Chinese–English Dictio...

https://pinyin.info/news/2024/book-sale/

Tomorrow, February 7, 2024, Mark O’Neill will give an online talk on “The Father of China’s Pinyin System: Zhou Youguang.” David Moser will moderate. The talk is sponsored by the Royal As...

https://pinyin.info/news/2024/online-talk-on-zhou-youguang/

Santa’s in his bus and all’s right with the world. Although coach buses in Taiwan often use the Gwoyeu Romatzyh romanization system, this bus uses “SAN TA” for “三大”, which is Wade...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/tis-the-season/

Earlier this evening I went to a rally for Hsiao Bi-khim, the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for vice president of Taiwan. Most of the speakers at the rally, including Hsiao, spoke in...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/hsiao-bi-khim-promotes-speaking-aboriginal-languages-taiwanese/

Earlier this week I wrote about San Francisco politicians and what constitutes a Chinese name. There has been some pushback against the new policy in San Francisco of not letting candidates for o...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/new-rule-on-chinese-names-criticized/

San Francisco will begin its own enforcement of a 2019 bill that places restrictions on the use of self-submitted Chinese names (i.e., names as written in Chinese characters), requiring that cand...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/san-francisco-politicians-and-what-constitutes-a-chinese-name/

A candidate for the Indigenous constituency in Taiwan’s Legislature has, in protest over government policies mandating the use of Chinese characters, changed her name to “李我要單列族�...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/my-bunun-name-is/

Recent years have been difficult for postsecondary foreign language programs in the United States, with enrollments down 16.6% overall between fall 2016 and fall 2021. Anecdotal evidence points t...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/us-postsecondary-enrollments-in-chinese-trending-down/

US Doctorates in Chinese and Japanese, 1983-2014 As you can see, in most years more doctorates were awarded in Chinese than in Japanese. The total doctorates over the covered period are 666 for C...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/us-doctorates-in-chinese-and-japanese-over-time/

In March, Taiwan’s Chunghwa Post (Zhōnghuá Yóuzhèng / 中華郵政) issued new postage stamps commemorating Zhuyin Fuhao (註音符號) (aka bopomofo, bopo mofo, or bpmf). The postal servic...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/taiwan-completes-its-zhuyin-fuhao-stamp-series/

Until ten years ago or so, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was the Taiwan political party most likely to use English in its campaign material. But other parties have jumped on that bandwag...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/taiwan-2024-presidential-campaign-english-slogans/

Terry Gou, the billionaire head of Foxconn, has been running an independent campaign for president of Taiwan. He doesn’t seem to be running this very well — but that’s not a romanization-re...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/terry-who/

If you’re in Taiwan, make a trip to your local 50% Fifty Percent Píngjià Shíshàng (50% FIFTY PERCENT 平价时尚) (50 percent bargain-price fashion) and pick up one of their shirts of vari...

https://pinyin.info/news/2023/t-shirts-with-romanized-taiwanese/