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2025-11-04 16:23:59 UTC
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Skewray Research on Nostr: Pinyin is not based on English; they just used a handy set of letters. Dropping that ...

Pinyin is not based on English; they just used a handy set of letters. Dropping that misconception makes Pinyin seem...less weird?

Your textbook was competing for the World's Worst Explanation...and won! I can't hear any difference between the ch's in church, and I've been speaking Mandarin daily for 25 years. Neither 'ch' nor 'c' sound anything like anything in church (in standard American English). Maybe the author spoke some arcane dialect of English?