Mei Feng pronunciation and name order

[Matney X]

Just as the title says, how do you say Mei Feng's name? I've read that it's supposed to be more similar to "May Feng(with a short E sound)" than "My," but most people still say "My Fang (with a long A sound)," but I've always wondered what is correct.

Also, taking Bai Ling as an example, is Mei Feng's "first name" Feng, with the "Mei" surname?

(Sorry... it's early, and I shouldn't be internetting before coffee.)

[Mike3838]

My assumption has always been that Mei Feng is intended to be a "pinyin" reading of the Mandarin words for Beautiful Wind (Pinyin is how Mandarin characters are transliterated in the Latin alphabet)

The correct pronunciation would therefore be close to May Fung. That's "May" as in the month. The "u" in Fung should be prounounced very lightly, close to the first syllable of "early", rather than the "u" in "fungi"

Edit: I've just done a bit of research and Feng = Wind is a pretty rare surname. Feng = Gallop and Feng = Phoenix are more common. Without seeing the Mandarin character, we don't know which one she is.

Edited November 5, 2013 by Mike3838

[daemonkin]

I was always told to pronounce 'Feng Shui' as 'Fung Ssshway' so it would mean theat 'Mei Feng' would be 'May Fung'.

Po - tate -o , Po - tat - 0 /shrug

D.

[Dracomax]

To be fair, you are talking about the transliteration of syllables from entirely dissimilar languages. It is entirely possible for something written Feng to be pronounced fang, fing, fung, or actually feng(with the e like egg), or something else entirely. It doesn't help that asian languages have sounds that English languages don't, and vice versa.

[Mike3838]

I'm pretty confident we're talking about Mandarin - Mei and Feng are both pretty common names in China and not so much in other countries.

The various characters which are transliterated as Feng (there are many chinese characters which share each pronunciation) will all share the same pronunciation.

If you went to China and said "Fang", ("a" as in apple), they'd think you meant a room or a place, and if you said "Fing" or "Fong" they wouldn't understand you because those aren't words

[Cats Laughing]

If you went to China and said "Fang", ("a" as in apple), they'd think you meant a room or a place, and if you said "Fing" or "Fong" they wouldn't understand you because those aren't words

In all likeliness they would just look at you with surprise for trying or snicker because your tones are all off. Nah, that's being harsh. They do look at my dad funny when he talks and do a bit of a double take before responding. He's tone deaf, so his tones are probably off, but context is usually enough for the meaning to get across.

Still pretty impressed.

美 风 is a possibility, but there are so many options.

I think Phoenix, due to her burning counter affinity, could be a good guess as well.

As Mike notes, we would need to see the characters.

Unlike Japanese or Korean, where it's possible to write purely phonetic names without any meaning attached (possible but unlikely in Korean), Mandarin (and the other Chinese dialects) doesn't have purely phonetic characters, so there would be some meaning in the characters used for her name.

I had a classmate whose family name was Feng ("wind"), though she wrote it with the traditional character: 風

Also, uncommon doesn't mean too much in a population of 1.? (2?) billion...

@Dracomax, while there is the possibility of trying to write Feng in many different ways using the English alphabet, there are certain recognized standards, such as the Pinyin Mike notes, which have codified the "proper" spelling of Mandarin (and I believe other Chinese dialects) sounds. I believe Pinyin is the more recognized and official standard, but it's been nearly 2 decades since I've studied this.

[TarlSS]

Mei Feng would be pronounced "May Fung". The tone would differentiate depending on the meaning (Wind, Phoenix, etc), but that's how it should be pronounced in English

Mei Feng is probably a single given name. A full Chinese name typically has three characters/syllables, ala "Mao Zedong", "Chiang Kai-Shek" , "Hu Jintao", "Xi Jinping".

For the english corollary, see "Seamus", "Tara", "Lynch" or "Misaki". All those characters are also listed by their given name. We likely do not know Mei Feng's surname. However, there are some people with just two names, like Confucious (FuZi). Typically this name is a moniker more than an actual name, like Jackie Chan's Chinese stage name (Cheng Long)

If Mei Feng IS indeed a given and surname, then the ordering, would be Given First, Surname Last. Because we are speaking English, we use the English order. As my teacher used to say, "The word for Chinese is Chinese, not ZhongWen"

*I can list my qualifications at request.

[Cats Laughing]

Actually, speaking of monikers, I would not be the least bit surprised if Mei Feng is a stage name/moniker/gangster name and that her real name (given & surname) is something that she does not share with people.

[Malharath]

Mei Feng would be pronounced "May Fung". The tone would differentiate depending on the meaning (Wind, Phoenix, etc), but that's how it should be pronounced in English

My wife is Chinese, and said that "May Fung" is Cantonese (a larger emphasis on the U sound) and "May Feng" ( it is pronounced very close to "fun") is Mandarin.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Malharath
english

[TarlSS]

My wife is Chinese, and said that "May Fung" is Cantonese (a larger emphasis on the U sound) and "May Feng" ( it is pronounced very close to "fun") is Mandarin.

That's correct.

I meant for the Fung to rhyme with Mung in mung beans. That's Mandarin. I'm Cantonese too and for Wind we say "Foong'. I guess the Oo is like Book. Well, not really, but that's as close as I can think.

In short, every attempt to try to accurately pin down the sounds of Chinese by butchering the English language just isn't going to work well.

[solkan]

In short, every attempt to try to accurately pin down the sounds of Chinese by butchering the English language just isn't going to work well.

Not that that has ever stopped anyone from trying. :Hiding_Puppet:

[4LeafClover]

I lived in Taiwan for two years and have a major in Mandarin Chinese. TarlSS hit it right on the head.

This is the PinYin for Mandarin Chinese (at least it looks like it, Cantonese is usually spelled slightly different). "Mei" should be pronounced "May" and "Feng" should be pronounced "fung" (unless you're from Taiwan, where they would pronounce the "e" as "oe" like in Foe).

So May Fung is the best way to spell it in english.