Life In 19x19

S2R1 can be interesting when it starts from an instable state, when PSK and SSK are confused or when parts of an S2R1 cycle are played amidts parts of other cycles elsewhere:) All not particularly relevant in practice but fun for theorists.

Maybe my Chinese is bad. ^_^ I of course meant 李喆, but I thought it is pronounced as Li Jie... He is a rising star and has great potential in winning a few international titles soon. So we need to get his name pronounced right. Can some native speaker help us here?

In the absence of a native contribution, let me assure readers that Chinese-Chinese reference sources all give Li Zhe.

Not remotely relevant to this thread: Anecdotally, I can say Zh sounds a lot like a J. Go find the nearest Chinese person and ask them to say Chinese in Chinese. The first sound is a Zh.

NB: I do not endorse Wikipedia as a source for anything. With that said: A wiki link with someone saying China in Chinese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zh-zhongguo.ogg

Loons wrote:Not remotely relevant to this thread: Anecdotally, I can say Zh sounds a lot like a J. Go find the nearest Chinese person and ask them to say Chinese in Chinese. The first sound is a Zh.

To Chinese person it sounds different though. (Well, depending on where you're from in China, but...)

In the same way the first sound in "thin" and in "that" sound different to English speakers. Foreigners probably think we're batty.

Incidentally the "zh" sound, along with the "ch" and "sh" sounds, requires your tongue to be fairly far back on the roof of your mouth, so a word with an -i- vowel like -ie can't start with zh-, ch-, or sh- : try it and see! So the first sounds in Zhe and Jie can't even hypothetically be switched.