Pinyin in the insider's guide?
- Joined: Aug 10th, 2006
- Posts: 47
Hi,
I really love the Insider's Guide - it's been my bible over the last year. I was wondering whether you had considered writing the Chinese names of listings in pinyin, or whether this could be included in the next edition. I'm not saying the whole address blaablaablaa but until I master Chinese writing (I'm at approx 1000 characters now!) I will continue to feel dependent on the guide each time I get into a taxi and want to go to destination x since I don't know how an English name has been translated into Chinese. There are so many places in Beijing with commonly-used English names which no taxi driver will ever recognize and it would be nice to have a reference to learn these.
Thanks
nelago
jiabao
Re: Pinyin in the insider's guide?
Hello Negalo,
I am one of the editors of the Insider's Guide to Beijing.
We're glad you like our book and we greatly appreciate your suggestion! We pride ourselves on being as helpful to our readers as possible, and certainly have considered using pinyin in the past. However, due to the vast number of listings in the guide, adding pinyin would threaten to further weigh down a book that many people deem too heavy already, and also threaten to make the information more confusing and less neatly formatted.
Another concern we have is that many of the venues listed in the book (including the majority of bars and restaurants) are just not commonly known to taxi drivers. To find these places the taxi driver would have a better chance reading the Chinese address than hearing the impeccably pronounced Chinese name (which may often be a nonsensical phonetic translation of the English name).
As far as historical sites (e.g. Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Parks, etc.), which taxi drivers are much more likely to know, we have extensive lists of Chinese and pinyin names of places around town in our Mandarin Phrasebook, which came out last fall. If you love living in Beijing and learning Chinese then you are exactly the sort of reader that we were hoping would enjoy the phrasebook and find it useful. It's available in bookstores around town whereever the Insider's Guide is sold. If you can't find a copy, please contact our distribution empress Zoe Wang at zoewang@thatsbj.com
We definitely appreciate suggestions and feedback from our readers, so please let us know if you have any other ideas that could help us improve our books.
Cheers,
Jiabao
nelago
Re: Pinyin in the insider's guide?
Thank you for this considerate response. I do have a copy of your phrasebook but I need help with everyday things, not just when I'm being a "tourist". Perhaps a solution would be to write a sort of 3-page index at the back (or perhaps next to the item in the regular index) where the Chinese place names (not full addresses) are written in pinyin. I mean everyday things like Carrefour (I now know it's jia le fu but it took me a while to cotton on to that) or the Kerry Centre (jia li zhong xin) and the like (office buildings, shopping centres, grocery stores, prominent apartment buildings).
Yesterday, I was trying to go to a charity bazaar at Embassy House - my (English) directions gave an address and then said "behind Pizza Hut and Australian Embassy" - my taxi driver didn't know the street address, I didn't know how to translate "Embassy House" or "Pizza Hut" - and he certainly didn't recognize the English names for those. We circled around until I just gave up. The name of our own building is not very well known but I don't know how to give landmarks around our building, such as the names of other, perhaps better known buildings, because I have got used to their English names and can't read their Chinese ones. (I'm sure there are those reading this who would suggest I just pick up the dictionary but sometimes that's easier said than done...)
The Insider's Guide has been a lifesaver but now I'm ready to get to the next step: look up my destination before I leave the house / office, and memorize the pinyin thereby allowing me to leave the actual (and yes, somewhat bulky) guide at home!
Thanks,
nelago
hongmei
Re: Pinyin in the insider's guide?
If you have an old copy of the guide, you could do what i do and tear out relevant pages from the old book rather than cart the new one around with you.
By the way - I agree, the guide is wonderful - I use it almost daily.