Beizhing, Pekin, Whatever


I almost snorted tieguanyin out of my nose when I read this. Cool blog, great resources and the voice of the speaker sounds awfully familiar.

Still, in spite of the three reasons to chill out when Americans bastardize the name of the Chinese capital with their nails-on-the-blackboard "Beizzhing" when the damn name is pronounced BAY-JING, I still can't overcome the impulse to correct.

Read the whole piece, plus listen to pronunciation samples...

Beizhing, Pekin, Whatever
March 1st, 2008

You know it’s bad for your hypertension to go prescriptivist on place names — “It’s Bay-Jing, you dolt, not Beizzhing!” But did you know there are even better reasons to take a chill? Here are the top 3 arguments for not giving in to the correctionist impulse:

Beijing Sounds 北京声儿