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The extension of word meanings. The pronunciation of some extended meaning is different from the pronunciation of the original meaning. For example: 背: refers to the back (of a person), pronounced bèi; when extended to the verb 背 (carry on the back), it is pronounced bēi.
Characters belonging to these series are generally phono-semantic compounds, where the character is composed of a semantic element (or radical) and a sound-based element, encoding information about the meaning and the pronunciation respectively. [2] For example, the character 波 is composed of the semantic component 氵 'water' and the sound ...
By contrast, many Southern Chinese who speak their own languages may have difficulty pronouncing the sound or may simply prefer not to pronounce it, and usually avoid words with erhua when speaking Standard Chinese; for example, the three examples listed above may be replaced with the synonyms 哪里 nǎlǐ, 一点 yìdiǎn, 好玩 hǎowán.
Many non-native Chinese speakers have difficulties mastering the tones of each character, but correct tonal pronunciation is essential for intelligibility because of the vast number of words in the language that only differ by tone (i.e. are minimal pairs with respect to tone). Statistically, tones are as important as vowels in Standard Chinese.
For example, the medials and are pronounced with such tight openings at the beginning of a final that some native Chinese speakers (especially when singing) pronounce yī (衣; 'clothes'), officially pronounced /í/, as /jí/ and wéi (围; 圍; 'to enclose'), officially pronounced /uěi/, as /wěi/ or /wuěi/. Often these medials are treated ...
However, the barrier between a character's pronunciation and meaning is never total: when transcribing into Chinese, loangraphs are often chosen deliberately as to create certain connotations. This is regularly done with corporate brand names: for example, Coca-Cola's Chinese name is 可口可乐; 可口可樂 (Kěkǒu Kělè; 'delicious ...