Zhongtong bus Company

[Randy Alexander]

On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 5:46 AM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Oh!  So "Zhontong" is ~Joengtoeng (~Joe as in "Joe").  I assume stress is
> the first syllable.


That would be the closest English equivalent.  In Mandarin stress is a whole
'nother ball game.  The tones of the two syllables of zhongtong are both
3rd, but because of tone sandhi they come out as 2nd and 3rd.  See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Tones

The 'o' sound in Mandarin when it precedes "ng" is monophthongal, so it is
different (a fixed and tighter rounding) from the 'o' sound in English
"Joe".

--
Randy Alexander
Xiamen, China
Blogs:
Manchu studies: http://www.sinoglot.com/manchu
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