Abstract:
A phonetic system having vowel phonetic symbols separated into full sound symbols and half sound symbols, and consonant phonetic symbols. The full sounds symbols are represented by letters in the English alphabet. The half sound symbols are represented by letters in the English alphabet with a predetermined symbol. Most consonant phonetic symbols are taken from consonant letters of English vocabularies. A phonetic diagram where the vowel phonetic symbols and the consonant phonetic symbols are systematically arranged therein is provided to allow user to easily visualize the vowel and consonant phonetic symbols. The phonetics utilizes direct phonetic spelling method, so as to enable easier obtaining of correct pronunciation. It also helps avoiding the possibility of misreading by utilizing combination of letters that do not appear in the English language.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION  
       [0001]     1. Field of Invention  
         [0002]     The present invention relates to a learning tool, and more particularly to the utilization of accustomed English letters as phonetic symbols for pronunciation of the Chinese characters.  
         [0003]     2. Description of Related Arts  
         [0004]     The Chinese Language phonetics of the present invention is a phonetics that utilizes letters in the English alphabet as their phonetic symbols for pronunciation of the Chinese characters. The above mentioned Chinese Language is equivalent to the Guoyu (national language) in Taiwan, R.O.C. and the Putonghua (general language) in the Mainland China, P.R.C. At present, the Taiwanese utilizes the Guoyu Zhuyin symbols and the Mainland Chinese utilizes the Chinese Pinyin as phonetic symbols for learning the Chinese language. People in other countries tend to utilize the Chinese Pinyin, which symbols use the letters in English alphabet, for much easier learning.  
         [0005]     However, rules of Chinese Pinyin are difficult to understand, since Chinese Pinyin has two characteristics, the first being pronunciations of Chinese Pinyin symbols are linked to that of Latin and the second being Chinese Pinyin utilizes phonetic spelling logics of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols, such that people with an English background but have no knowledge of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols find it difficult to adapt. An example is that the Chinese character           (translated as “clothes”) is represented by “i” in Chinese Pinyin. However, people with an English background is accustomed to pronouncing a single “i” as the Chinese character           (translated as “dust”) or a short sound that is similar to the sound of the Chinese character           but not the same long sound of the word           The reason is that there are certain rules as to how vowels in English vocabularies are pronounced. As a result, the linkage between Chinese Pinyin and Latin pronunciations creates the situation of learners having an English background cannot get used to the Chinese Pinyin. Also, Chinese Pinyin phonetically spell the word           as “tian”           but not the direct phonetic spelling of “tien”, this is the result of the utilization of phonetic spelling logics of Guoyu Zhuyin with Chinese Pinyin causing confusions to learners without any knowledge of Guoyu Zhuyin.  
         [0006]     To improve the above situations, the Chinese Phonetic symbols has to be linked with the English language, such as the Chinese character           translated as “ladder”) should be pronounced as “tee” to replace the pronunciation of “ti” in Chinese Pinyin, which is more suitable for learners with an English background. As a result, with the above settings of Chinese Language phonetics, which is a linkage with English, the entire population of Chinese learners with English background can accept easier when learning the Chinese Language. The above reasons are the reasons for the present invention of Chinese Language Phonetics.  
       SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION  
       [0007]     A main object of the present invention is to provide a phonetic system for people with English background to easier learn Chinese. In which, the vowels in this Chinese language phonetics are classified into full sounds and half sounds, represented by full sound symbols and half sound symbols respectively, wherein the full sounds are capable of representing the pronunciations of complete syllables, therefore named full sounds.  
         [0008]     Full sound symbols are obtained from vowels of long sound of English vocabularies. Half sounds represent pronunciations for incomplete syllables, therefore named half sounds. Half sound symbols are obtained from vowels of short sound of English vocabularies. As a result, this Chinese language phonetics has the characteristic of a real linkage with vowels of the English language. Apart from the above, this Chinese phonetics comprises the following enabling rules: 
        1. It utilizes direct phonetic spelling method, such as the Chinese characters “          (translated as “sky” and “criticize”) are phonetically spelt as “tien jio” in this phonetics, which is more direct than the “tian jiu” of the Mainland Chinese Pinyin, for an easier obtaining of correct pronunciation.     2. The design considered the compatibility with Chinese Pinyin, as a result, learners of this phonetics will find it easier to adapt to, if due to any reasons, when they have to utilize Chinese Pinyin. Similarly, Chinese Pinyin users will find this phonetics easy to adapt to.     3. To avoid the possibility of misreading, such as                     and           of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols are represented by combinations of letters that do not appear in the English language, “tz″”, “tc″” and “s″” respectively, so as to avoid situations similar to confusing the pronunciation of Chinese Pinyin symbols “zh”, “ch” and “sh” with their respective usage in the English Language.        
 
         [0012]     Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides a phonetic system for English-speaking Chinese-language learners, wherein said phonetic system comprising: 
        a plurality of vowel phonetic symbols including a plurality of full sound symbols, wherein each of the full sound symbols represents a specific complete syllable pronunciations, and a plurality of half sound symbols, wherein each of the half sound symbol represents a specific incomplete syllable pronunciation;     a plurality of consonant phonetic symbols wherein each of the consonant phonetic symbols represents a specific consonant sound; and     a phonetic diagram provided to facilitate human visualizing, wherein the vowel phonetic symbols and the consonant phonetic symbols are systematically arranged therein.        
 
         [0016]     The present invention also provides a method of providing a phonetic system, comprising the steps of: 
        (a) providing a plurality of vowel phonetic symbols, wherein each of the plurality of vowel phonetic symbols represents a predetermined vowel sound;     (b) providing a plurality of consonant phonetic symbols, wherein each of the plurality of consonant phonetic symbols represents a predetermined consonant sound; and     (c) systematically arranging the plurality of vowel phonetic symbols and the plurality of consonant phonetic symbols into a phonetic diagram, allowing a learner to have a systematic understanding of the vowel phonetic symbols and the consonant phonetic symbols.        
 
         [0020]     These and other objectives, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, the accompanying drawings, and the appended claims.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0021]     Vowel phonetic symbols are divided into full sound symbols and half sound symbols, as a result, the present phonetic symbols and their pronunciations are suitable for analogously obtained from the vowel letters of vowel sounds of long sounds or short sounds of English vocabularies, such that they can be easily accepted by people with an English background. For example, a symbol of this Chinese phonetic symbol represented by “oo”, which sound is the same as that of the Chinese character           (translated as “dark”), has the same sound as the “oo” in the word “food”. The symbol “oo” can not only represent the correct pronunciation of the word           but also easy to learn. Below is an instruction of the classification of full sounds and half sounds of the present invention illustrating the phonetic symbols and their basis of usage:  
                                               Symbols of the   Corresponding                   Present Chinese   Guoyu Zhuyin       Application   Guoyu Zhuyin       Phonetics   Symbol   Basis of the Usage of the Phonetic Symbols   Example   Symbol                   Full Sound                       a                                 The “a” sound in the word “father”.                                                                   ae                                 A custom of the English language, wherein the               pronunciation of the vowel followed by an “e”               is a long vowel sound.       ee                                 The “ee” sound in the word “need”.                                                                   o                                 The “o” sound in the word “go”.                                                                   oo                                 The “oo” sound in the word “too”.                                                                   ii                                 Predetermined                                                                   ô                                 Obtained from the “schwa” symbol from the                                                                           English phonetic symbols.       Half Sound       â                                 The “a” sound of the word “car”.                                                                   ê                                 The “e” sound of the word “set”.                                                                   î                                 The “i” sound of the word “kid”.                                                                   ô                                 The “o” sound of the word “lore”.                                                                   û                                 The “u” sound of the word “push”.                                                                   {circumflex over (ii)}                                 Predetermined.                                                                   {circumflex over (∂)}                                 Obtained from the “schwa” symbol from the                                                                           English phonetic symbols.                  
 
         [0022]     The phonetic spelling method according to the above lists is such that full sound symbol can be used alone to represent pronunciations of syllables, for example, full sound symbol “o” alone can represent the sound of a syllable of the Chinese character “          (translated as “Europe”), or used alone to represent the vowel sound of the syllable           (translated as “to cut open”). In phonetic spelling, half sound symbols alone cannot represent a pronunciation of a syllable, but can form combined symbols which can perform the equivalent role of full sound symbols. As an example, combined symbols comprising the half sound symbol “î”, “aî”, “în” and “îe” can be used for phonetically spelling the syllables           bîn           and           respectively.  
         [0023]     However, there are a few exception Chinese characters, representing exclamation, such as           (translated as “stunned”)           and           (translated as “oh”) (ô), which have pronunciations of half sound syllables.  
         [0024]     The systematic characteristics of Conventional Chinese vowel phonetic symbols are not very obvious. As a result, it is relatively difficult to obtain a complete concept during learning. The present classification of full sound and half sound of the Chinese phonetic symbols is suitable for producing a simple phonetic symbol list, providing convenience in analysis and learning, as a result, a method of combining phonetic symbols is invented. In order to provide a simple symbol list, the design is a circle, wherein on an outer periphery of the circle comprises five full sound symbols, namely, “a”, “ee”, “oo”, “ae”, and “o” and their corresponding five half sound symbols, namely, “â”, “ê”, “û”, “ê”, and “ô”. This method of classifying vowels into 5 groups is also utilized by the English Language. It is relatively more systematic, which helps learners to understand the structure of the language. Apart from the symbols on the outer periphery of the circle, inside the circle are special sounds in the Chinese language, namely ii, {circumflex over (ii)} and the neutral sound ∂ and {circumflex over (∂)}. Apart from being able to provide analysis, this list also has the advantage of easy to memorize:  
                         
 
         [0025]     Most consonant in Chinese phonetics are similar to consonants of the English language, as a result, the consonant phonetic symbols of the present Chinese phonetics are taken from consonant letters of English vocabularies. A few Chinese-language-only phonetic are specially defined. Below is a list of consonant phonetic symbols of the present Chinese phonetics and their basis of usage:  
                                               Consonant Symbols of   Corresponding                   the Present Chinese   Guoyu Zhuyin   Basis of the Usage   Application   Guoyu Zhuyin       Phonetics   Symbol   of the Phonetic Symbols   Example   Symbol                                           b                                 The letter “b” in the word “boy”                                                                   p                                 The letter “p” in the word “pay”                                                                   m                                 The letter “m” in the word “may”                                                                   f                                 The letter “f” in the word “fan”                                                                   d                                 The letter “d” in the word “day”                                                                   t                                 The letter “t” in the word “toy”                                                                   n                                 The letter “n” in the word “no”                                                                   l                                 The letter “i” in the word “long”                                                                   g                                 The letter “g” in the word “go”                                                                   k                                 The letter “k” in the word “kind”                                                                   h                                 The letter “h” in the word “hide”                                                                   j (i)                                 The letter “j” in the word “jeep”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       q (i)                                 Specially defined                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       x (i)                                 Specially defined                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       tz”                                 Specially defined                                                                   tc”                                 Specially defined                                                                   s”                                 Specially defined                                                                   rr                                 Specially defined                                                                   tz                                 Specially defined                                                                   tc                                 Specially defined                                                                   s                                 The letter “s” in the word “same”                                                                   y                                 The letter “y” in the word “yeast”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       W                                 The letter “w” in the word “wide”                                                                   yii                                 Specially defined                                                                                                                                                          
 
         [0026]     Below is the application instructions and application example of the Chinese phonetics: 
        Vowel sounds of Chinese phonetics are divided into full sounds and half sounds, not only can this provide a better linking effect to the English language, it is also suitable for analyzing the phonetics of the Chinese language. However, when applying to phonetically spelling, for simplifying purposes, the marking of the addition symbol “{circumflex over ( )}” of the half sound symbols can be omitted. The majority of the simplified phonetic combinations do not affect the results of the phonetic spelling. The only exception is that when the additional symbol, “{circumflex over ( )}”, of the half sound symbol “ô” is omitted, it is impossible to distinguish in phonetic combinations whether it is a full sound of a half sound, which may affect its correct pronunciation. To avoid confusion, it can be distinguished from a simple method. When the symbols of a syllable includes “uo” or “ao”, “o” acts as a half sound, for example, “suo”           translated as “shuttle”,           “gao” (          translated as “tall”,           Apart from those two, other combinations of “o” act as full sounds, for example, “so”           translated as “search”,           “xîo”          translated as “rest”,           dîo           translated as “throw”,           “song”           translated as “pine”,           and “fong”           translated as “wind”,           “o” of full sounds is similar to the           sound of Guoyu Zhuyin, wherein the ending of the pronunciation includes a slight “u           sound. “o” of half sounds is similar to the           sound of Guoyu Zhuyin, which does not have the ending sound of “          (u)”.        
 
         [0028]     Consonant symbols “tz″”, “tc″”, “s″”, “rr”, “tz”, “tc” and “s” of this phonetics are similar to consonant symbols          , “         ”, “         , “         ”,          , “          and “         ” of Guoyu Zhuyin symbols respectively, wherein the difference in application is that the above listed Guoyu Zhuyin symbols alone can represent the pronunciations of syllables, such as Ψ represents the pronunciation of “          ” (translated as “of”) and “          ” represents the pronunciation of “         ” (translated as “eat”), whereas as consonant symbols of this Chinese phonetics, when used alone, “tz″”, “tc″”, “S″”, “rr”, “tz”, “tc” and “s” are easily considered as sounds of their English letters. As a result, the above mentioned consonant symbols of this Chinese phonetics utilize the “period”, “.”, to distinguish, by marking the lower right hand corner of the symbols, such as “tz″.” to represent the pronunciation of “         ”, “tc″.” to represent the pronunciation of “         ”, and “S″.” to represent the pronunciation of           (translated as “poem”).  
         [0029]     Vowel phonetic symbols “î”, ”ee” “{circumflex over (ii)}”, “ii”, “û”, and “oo” are not to be used on the first symbol of the phonetic marking, instead, they should be matched with consonant sounds “y” or “w” of the same series to provide unity in application, such as “yîn”           translated as “sound”), “yee”           translated as “clothing”), “y{circumflex over (ii)}e”           translated as “curve”), “wûô” (          translated as “cave”), and “woo” (          translated as “dark”).  
         [0030]     Intonation symbol utilizes method similar to that of Guoyu Zhuyin: first tone utilizes “{overscore ( )}”or no markings; second tone utilizes “{acute over ()}”; third tone utilizes “         ”; fourth tone utilizes “{grave over ()}”; soft sound utilizes “{dot over ( )}”. Marking positions of intonation symbols are above the last letter of each syllable, such that when phonetically spelling a phrase, the intonation symbols can act as a boundary between syllables, such as “jin{grave over (g)}aì”           translated as “respectably love”) is a combination of the two syllables “jin{grave over (g)}” “aì”.  
         [0031]     Below are actual application examples, which are according to and in the order of the Guoyu Zhuyin symbols           including the three phonetic spelling of this Chinese phonetics, Guoyu Zhuyin symbols and the Chinese Pinyin for comparison, so as to show the advantages of the present phonetics:  
                                                   Phonetic Spelling of the                   Present Chinese Phonetics.   Phonetic       Order of       The Phonetic   Spelling of       Guoyu   Chinese   Spelling in Brackets are   Mainland       Zhuyin   character and Its   the Spelling Maintaining   Chinese       Symbol   Guoyu Zhuyin   the Additional Symbol “{circumflex over ( )}”   Pinyin                                                                                                   ba   ba                                         bien (bîên)   bian                                         buo (bûô)   bo                                                                   pai (pâî)   pai                                         puo (pûô)   po                                                                   ma   ma                                         muo (mûô)   mo                                                                   fa   Fa                                         fuo (fûô)   fo                                         fo   fou                                                                   da   da                                         do   dou                                         duo (dûô)   duo                                         die (dîê)   die                                                                   ta   ta                                         tun (tûn)   tun                                         to   tou                                                                   niie (n{circumflex over (ii)}ê)   nue                                         nuo (nûô)   nuo                                                                   la   la                                         lio (lîo)   liu                                                                   gô   Ge                                         go   gou                                                                   ka   ka                                         kuae (kûac)   kui                                                                   ha   ha                                         hua (hûâ)   hua                                                                   jee   Ji                                         jin (jîn)   jin                                         jii   ju                                         jiin (jîin)   jun                                                                   qee   qi                                         qie (qîê)   qie                                         qii   qu                                         qiie (q{circumflex over (ii)}ê)   que                                                                   xee   xi                                         xia (xîâ)   xu                                         xiie (x{circumflex over (ii)}ê)   xue                                                                   tz” .   zhi                                         tz” a   zha                                         tz” ∂n (tz” ∂n)   zhen                                         tz” ∂ng (tz” {circumflex over (∂)}ng)   zheng                                                                   tc” .   chi                                         tc” a   cha                                         tc” ∂ng (tc” {circumflex over (∂)}ng)   cheng                                         tc” ∂n (tc” ∂n)   chen                                                                   s” .   shi                                         s” a   sha                                         s” ∂ng (s” {circumflex over (∂)}ng)   sheng                                         s” ∂n (s” {circumflex over (∂)}n)   shen                                                                   rr” .   ri                                         rrang (rrâng)   ran                                                                   tz.   zi                                         tza   za                                                                   tc.   ci                                         tca   ca                                                                   s.   si                                         sa   sa                                                                   yee   yi                                         ya   ya                                         yie (yîê)   ye                                         yo   yo                                         yin (yîn)   yin                                         ting (ting)   ting                                         dio (dîo)   diu                                                                   doo   du                                         dun (dûn)   dun                                         wa   wa                                         woo   wu                                         wuo (wûô)   wo                                                                   yii   yu                                         jiin (j{circumflex over (ii)}n)   jun                                         yiie (y{circumflex over (ii)}ê)   yue                                         yiien (y{circumflex over (ii)}ên)   yuan                                                                   ta   ta                                                                   buo (bûô)   bo                                         suo (sûô)   suo                                         ô   ô                                                                   m∂ (m{circumflex over (∂)})   me                                                                   ai (âî)   ai                                                                   hae   hei                                                                   ao (âô)   ao                                                                   s” o   shou                                         so   sou                  
 
         [0032]     These phonetics can be applied on printed material, virtual media or other medium, so as to pass this Chinese language phonetics to learners.  
         [0033]     One skilled in the art will understand that the embodiment of the present invention as shown in the drawings and described above is exemplary only and is not intended to be limiting.  
         [0034]     It will thus be seen that the objects of the present invention have been fully and effectively accomplished. It embodiments have been shown and described for the purposes of illustrating the functional and structural principles of the present invention and is subject to change without departure from such principles. Therefore, this invention includes all modifications encompassed within the spirit and scope of the following claims.