Talk:List of Chinese Pokémon names

This list requires:

1. Sources
2. Statement of which Chinese community these names are used in - China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Singapore even
3. Traditional/Simplified forms

- 振霖_T 16:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)\

From:[1] -Billy4b2004 11:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I will continue this tomorrow!-Billy4b2004 11:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I can finish it today!-Billy4b2004 13:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Just leave it tomorrow!I am too tired to complete it now!-Billy4b2004 14:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, that the list is pure copy of Chinese Wikipedia's list. Most of 387+ Pokémon names are unofficial (fan-guessed), while the HongKongese names of 252+ may or may not be official (I'm not sure if Hong Kong has ever reached Hoenn). --Maxim 14:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hurray!It's complete!It's complete!-Billy4b2004 03:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Hong Kong has reached Hoenn already while Taiwan has reached Sinnoh already.-Billy4b2004 03:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

How about tranlsations of the names? Chinese names are hilarious. unsigned comment by MyGolden

here is what this list really needs, by column:

• name of pokemon in mainland china writen in simplified characters
• name of pokemon in taiwan writen in traditional characters
• name of pokemon in hong knog writen in traditional characters
• romanization of mainland china name using official PRC pinyin
• romanization of taiwan name using pinyin (they officially switched to the PRC pinyin system this year)
• romanization of hong kong name using either Yale or Jyutping(LSHK), Yale is better for native english speakers, other systems are not commonly used.

Pokefan88 09:56, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

@MyGolden: I'd really like to do that. Any objections? 15israellai (talk) 14:48, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Accuracy

I was wondering, is this list accurate? I wanted to start adding it to my huge list of names while will eventually be ported to an article (current version here.) I just couldn't tell from the above comments about the article. MK 07:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Blame TVB for the inaccuracy of the HK names.-Billy4b2004 14:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

TVB? MK 14:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, TVB is a bad broadcasting company in HK, they stopped airing Pokémon in mid-AG, therefore most of the Hoenn and Sinnoh names are fan-made/direct copied of the TW names. -Billy4b2004 14:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

So the Mandarin/TW names are correct, but the Cantonese/HK names may be dubious? MK 12:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

We need the romanisation of the names in Chinese

Don't you think it's wise to have the romanised Chinese Pokemon names? That way, people can pronounce it if we have it listed in Wades-Giles and Pinyin. Joe9320 01:57, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Well there is Chinese and Mandarin. Mandarin might be easy, but Cantonese doesn't really have a pinyin.--^☆Tavisource 02:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Unlicensed Chinese Game Tip Cards and Mainland/Taiwan Names

Recently I found some unlicensed Pokémon game tip cards for sale in Huanggang, China. Would it be relevant if I upload some pictures of them and post them in this article?
I also have a question: Are the names used in Taiwan always the same as those used in mainland China, with the difference being that Taiwan uses traditional and mainland uses simplified? Ultraflame 17:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think pictures from pirated products is needed. Up to now, all official Pokémon names in Taiwan and mainland China is the same, as well as almost all moves, locations, characters. Only the word "Pokémon" itself is different since 2011. --Swampert 16:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

A Total Mix-Up

All of the divisions of Chinese seem really messed up here. I don't speak fluent Chinese, but I know quite a bit about the regionality of it all.

So there are three columns which have Chinese characters in them. Chinese (Simplified, CN), Chinese (Traditonal, TW/CN), and Chinese (HK).

To me, the only one that is correct is Chinese (Simplified, CN), but should be made more specific and changed to Mandarin Chinese (Simplified, CN).

Now for Chinese (Traditional, TW/CN). China uses simplified, so it should not be listed here. Rather, Hong Kong should make an appearance here. Hong Kong law states that it's official languages are English and Chinese, with no specifying of Mandarin or Cantonese. Both are used there. And when used, both are written with tradtional characters.

Chinese (HK) is pretty much okay, but it should be reworded to specify Cantonese.

Therefore, my proposed three new columns for Chinese characters are:

• Cantonese Chinese (Traditional, HK)
• Mandarin Chinese (Simplified, CN)
• Mandarin Chinese (Traditional, HK/TW)

Also, I have some problems with the organization of the table on this page. It seems to be randomly scattered. I think that after each Chinese character column, the Latin alphabet spelling should be the next column.

Finally, the Chinese names pasted on Pokemon pages. Some have Chinese (Taiwan) and Chinese (Hong Kong). Which doesn't really make sense in the current state of this page. I, however, believe that all 3 should be posted on each Pokemon's article.

Comments? Porygon-Z 01:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I also believe that all 3 should be posted. I also noticed that in the formating on some pages, a country is in the parenthesis, i.e. Taiwan, when it should be the language, i.e. traditional that is in the parenthesis instead.

I am sorry to revive a topic so old. Thing is this hasn't even been resolved. I am a Hongkongian. I want to say, "Cantonese Chinese" makes no sense. Cantonese and Chinese uses the same set of characters but differs so much in both pronunciation and grammar. Linguists have argued that they are not different dialects of a same language (because people speaking with different dialects can communicate with each other without any problem, but not Cantonese and Chinese). This is the speaking system. For the writing system, we usually go for "Traditional Chinese" or "Simplified Chinese". This "Chinese" refers to the written characters but not the tongue. It is the same as saying "Basic Latin" and "Accented Latin" for French, Spanish etc. This is a summary:

Region	Writing system	Grammar	Speaking system	Phonic system
China	Simplified Chinese	Mandarin grammar (a direct descendent of 新文學運動, literally: Movement of new literature)	Mandarin (Putonghua variant)	Pinyin (Romanized)
Taiwan	Traditional Chinese	Mandarin grammar with localized features	Mandarin (Guoyu variant)	Zuyin (aka Bopomofo, not Romanized, but convertable)
Hong Kong	Traditional Chinese	Cantonese grammar (ancient and still used today, linguists can date some of the uses and sayings from 2000 years ago)	Cantonese (Hongkongian variant)	Yale, IPA, tonic numberings, basic Latin

Conclusion: I cordially believe that these regions are better seperated. Putting them together is like putting Brazil and Portugal, or France and Ivory Coast together. -Iosue (talk) 05:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

While Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible, this page is only meant to list names used in those regions and there's already a column for each region in this page. This page isn't about discussing linguistic differences between them. Besides, if both Brazil and Portugal would have their own set of names, they would be put together in one page. (I have to agree that dialect isn't a good translation for 方言...) --超龍_「Chao」 07:38, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Still, "Cantonese Chinese" makes no sense and should be eradicated. -Iosue (talk) 14:49, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Cantonese Romanization

Since the Hong Kong version is in Cantonese, not Mandarin language I think that romanizing it in Pinyin and Wade-Giles (which are both made to romanize Mandarin) makes no sense. We should choose different romanization systems for Cantonese. If we want two system, then I say that Yale and toneless Jyutping would do. However, none of the Cantonese romanization systems is widely accepted. What do you think? --Maxim 08:16, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese character under Simplified Chinese column

I noticed most of the Chinese words under the Simplified Chinese column are traditional ones. I believe it should be edited and changed to Simplified ones. Example, the traditional character "鳥" change to the simplified version "鸟".

Tetrix 13:52, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Certain issues

I decided to romanize to choose Yale and Jyutping as the romanizations for Hong Kong names, as they're Cantonese, not Mandaring. Cantonese has noticeably different phonology. Romanizing Cantonese in PinYin and Wade-Giles is neither accurate, nor reasonable. Those schemes are for Mandarin. Second, do we need those Bopomofo (Zhuyin Fuhao) characters? No one practically uses them anymore. They've been superseded by romanization in the means of phonetic transcription. Last but not least, do we need the tone numbers in Wade-Giles (and Jyutping) romanizations? Let's be true. They look cryptic and ugly. I think that having tones marked as diacritics in PinYin and Yale romanizations is enough. Or perhaps, is it possible to make those numbers superscript using Wikitags? That'll make them look better. --Maxim 09:51, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I would agree on the first statement. It would make more sense to have the Cantonese names romanized in Yale (or Jyutping). Second, no one? Last time I checked, Zhuyin is still being taught in Chinese schools outside mainland China. (Zhuyin also works like furigana.) Lastly, I would admit that Wades-Giles looks unappealing. If you do want to make the numbers into superscript, try ^{^#}. 神奇超龍 7:57, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

About the name change in mainland China

For unknown reasons, the official translation for "Pocket Monsters" in mainland China has been changed from "神奇宝贝" to "精灵宝可梦", and "Pokémon" is "宝可梦". Today the Feb 2011 issue of Coro-Coro China version is out, the official manga website announced several Pokémon Adventures preview scans. There we can see despite the name change for "Pokémon", all other names (Pokémon, Location, Character, Move) still keep the same with the Taiwan version (eg: 姆克儿, 祝庆市, 戴亚蒙德, 帕尔). --Swampert 10:54, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

About the Unova Pokémon name in Hong Kong

Hong Kong haven't broadcast Pokémon Best Wishes, so Hong Kong shouldn't have their Pokémon name now(Did Hong Kong has Pokémon Adventure Black & White Chapter or other manga?)(Sorry for my poor English...)--847418742/Talk 14:46, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Yale and Jyutping

Why are they taking so long? Are there any online converters in any way? --Abcboy (talk) 17:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is, both Yale and Jyutping isn't widely used for Cantonese. I can fill them out slowly and manually. But there isn't really a converter. -Iosue (talk) 05:34, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Issues with Hong Kong

I understand that the community of Bulbapedia wishes to remain politically neutral. Then there is just a slight issue. When Generation I was out, Hong Kong was not a part of China. It was a part of the United Kingdoms. To remain politically neutral while historically accurate, I believe that the flags of Hong Kong should be changed back to the blue flag with Union Jack and Coat of Arms for Hong Kong. For Generation II onwards, it is fine to be kept as be. -Iosue (talk) 05:32, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

That won't be necessary. The Cantonese names were released around November 1998, which is more than a year after the former British colony became a special administrative region of the PRC. --超龍_「Chao」 07:38, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

鬼雀 and 魔雀

I think it is possible to be either zoek2 or zoek3. It's usually zoek3 when reading off written texts, like 雀仔, and sometimes confused with 鵲. In spoken conventions, I think it's more zoek2, like: "睼下隻雀！". I am not sure about this but I think we really need to get back to how the actors pronounced it in the Cantonese anime. -Iosue (talk) 13:44, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I think it is zoek3. You see, I come from Hong Kong too and also speaks Cantonese, and I heard them saying zoek3 when they're talking about Fearow in the Movie about manaphy and the undersea temple, so I'm putting zoek3. On the issue of Jyutping, I'm pretty sure Wartortle's 美 should be mei5, no? It seems pretty odd with mei3, since that character would be 敉. You're right about Bulbasaur and Squirtle though. My oversight. Still, I'm no master when it comes to Jyutping, so correct me if I'm wrong.---Meowstic- (talk) 14:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Now, come to think of it, it is mei5. My bad, sorry. And if you are sure about zoek3, then so be it. Good job, lad. -Iosue (talk) 15:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization

The capitalization in inconsistent. Pinyin has only the first letter capitalized, Wade-Giles has each word capitalized, while Jyutping has none at all. Are these the specific ways that they are used? --Abcboy (talk) 19:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

No. -Iosue (talk) 02:33, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The pinyin romanization is combined into a single word, so only the first letter is capitalized. As for Jyutping, I think it would be better for it to follow the format being used for Wade-Giles here just for consistency. By that, I mean capitalize the romanization and superscript the numbers (i.e. ^{^#}). --超龍_「Chao」 02:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this, but every Jyutping I see in Hong Kong are always not capitalized and have no superscript, while Wade-Giles always has superscripts and sometimes capitalized. Perhaps it is only me, but I think Jyutping should be put with no capitalization and superscripts.---Meowstic- (talk) 15:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I am not particularly for or against this. Consistency here is irrelevant if consistency is not observed for the phonic systems. I don't see it neccessary to maintain this kind of consistency while there is an issue on consistency on a much larger scope. In this scope, nothing is particularly good or bad other than aesthetics and creating extra works. -Iosue (talk) 17:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

We need to reopen the discussions on the columns

Change of layout

I am proposing to use this layout instead:

Ndex		English	Taiwan	China	Hong Kong
001		Bulbasaur	妙蛙種子 ㄇㄧㄠˋ ㄨㄚ ㄓㄨㄥˇ ㄗˇ Miao4 Wa1 Chung3 Tzu3	妙蛙种子 Miàowāzhǒngzǐ	奇異種子 kei4 ji6 zung2 zi2

Conversion can be easily done by doing replacement with Regular Expressions. -Iosue (talk) 03:06, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The three lines for Taiwan make it a bit large. Putting the zhuyin as hovertext looks a bit better, in my opinion:

Ndex		English	Taiwan	China	Hong Kong
001		Bulbasaur	妙蛙種子 Miao4 Wa1 Chung3 Tzu3	妙蛙种子 Miàowāzhǒngzǐ	奇異種子 kei4 ji6 zung2 zi2

--Abcboy (talk) 03:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Having two separate systems for the Mandarin names would also imply Taiwan's and Mainland's names have different readings, which is only true for certain characters (e.g. 蝸牛 guāniú / wōniú). Considering that Taiwan has already adapted the Pinyin system, I propose Wade-Giles be replaced entirely with Pinyin instead. --超龍_「Chao」 03:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, Taiwan officially uses Hanyu Pinyin like Mainland China does. Lots of things still use Wade-Giles or Tongyong Pinyin, though. The Hong Kong government itself uses Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation, while the Hong Kong Education Bureau uses Cantonese Pinyin and the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong uses Jyutping. So, what to do... --Abcboy (talk) 03:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems a question with a higher priority will be "How do we define a single Locale?" I suggest that we define a Locale as "a localized system that is independently developed and used among all local contents". Even if Chinese and Taiwanese names are mostly similar, they are independently developed. Just take "Pokémon" as an example, Chinese people call it "精灵宝可梦" while Taiwanese call it"口袋怪獸" (am I right?). To keep consistency for things other than just individual names of Pokémon, I suggest maintaining a tri-region system, each with its own independent Romanization. Then, the next question will be: IPA , Yale or each with a different standard? -Iosue (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

For the question of Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation and Cantonese Pinyin, I think both are not good. In matters like this, I'd prefer looking at the authorities behind the systems instead of simply comparing the features. The Government's Romanization is a result of policy and stuff. They must have consulted people to come up with this but the main driving force behind would be just to serve daily purposes within the borders of Hong Kong. It is a kind of political hegemony. The IEd's method is neither good. It was proposed to optimize for the local teachers. Last I checked, IEd wasn't the most authoritative institute on linguistics. Instead, the Jyutping was proposed by the Linguistic Society. It is independent and formed by linguists. It should have more authority academically in this matter. But I do believe Yale would be a better option. Yale might be alien for Hongkongians but it is optimized for the English-speaking world. The authority is also good as it is independent and formed by linguists. -Iosue (talk) 06:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The Locale isn't really much of an issue here. The three columns of Chinese names are meant to represent Taiwan, Mainland China, and Hong Kong. The names used in Mainland are exactly the same as Taiwan's because they were based on Taiwan's translation. The only difference between the two is the writing system being used. In the case of Hong Kong, they were independent translated, until Generation II came along and they were handled by the same company who did Taiwan's dub. Translation of Pokémon is still a controversial issue in the Chinese fandom. There are three "official" names for it, with the mainland fandom having their own fan name for it. Here's a more detailed explanation on the franchise in the region. (By the way, the Taiwanese calls it 神奇寶貝). As I mentioned below, I would rather have a different romanization system for Mandarin (Pinyin) and Cantonese (Yale). I consider Yale to be preferable for Cantonese to make it more convenient for the users to read. --超龍_「Chao」 08:12, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I guess I'd need some lecturing regarding what happens in China. Do you mean that Nintendo only allows the Chinese people to broadcast the Anime without acknowledging the official name? But even so, I think I read it somewhere regarding canon materials for Bulbapedia that all official Animes are to be considered canonic. Then, whatever names it takes and whatever methodology they used to rename their own version, are canonical in their own system. So we will have 3 canonic versions here: Hongkongian, Taiwanese and Chinese (I don't know but the Chinese version smells like some heavy censorships there). Anyhow, I don't think we have the authority to draw any conclusion here. I am just pretty sure that a Chinese contributor cannot represent what happens in Taiwan and a Taiwanese contributor also cannot represent what happens in China, that is not to mention Hong Kong. For using Pinyin on Taiwanese Guoyu, I am not so sure as I've not even heard of it. Also, I'd also like to know if Pinyin can be converted to something Yale-like? -Iosue (talk) 09:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Nintendo is rather vague with the status of Chinese names. While the names are used in various official media, Nintendo's website noted that the names are only for reference. In addition to that, the Chinese subpage in the Japanese Pokémon website used the term "神奇寶貝" until a few months back where it's replaced with "Pokémon" instead. Moreover, the company handling the Mandarin and Cantonese dub no longer have the rights to it as of January 2014.

Also, Taiwan has already adapted to Pinyin since 2009. Most of the location names have already been renamed with their pinyin spelling, with the exception of the ones with more establish spelling such as Taipei and Kaohsiung. --超龍_「Chao」 10:07, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I do want to note that the most I have seen about the canon of the Anime is on the canon article. The most it says is that, "The Japanese version of the anime supersedes any and all dubs if there is conflict between them, unless the dub corrects an obvious error. If something is said in a dub that is not mentioned in the original, it may not be truly canon." --Super goku (talk) 22:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The problem now on this topic is not about whether Taiwan uses Pinyin or not. That discussion should be held over in the next subheading. Instead, we should focus on if we should split the Chinese system from the Taiwanese. I go for this because Chinese concerns are not valid to Taiwan and Taiwanese concerns are not valid to China. All quoted phenomena are merely for illustrations. -Iosue (talk) 14:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Standards of Romanization

Beside this conversion, I also propose to completely abandon the Yale Romanization for Cantonese, as it is really hard to locate a source. Most of the Chinese dictionaries sold in Hong Kong only have Pinyin for Mandarin and Jyutping for Cantonese. Most of the online sources are using Jyutping. I don't know about international capabilities on pronouncing these notations with tonic numberings. I think, maybe, the Yale or IPA diacritics are better interpreted by non-Asians. But that would be something to think about later. -Iosue (talk) 03:06, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Apparently this website should be able to convert the Jyutping to Yale. I wouldn't know if it is right though, someone else needs to check that. --Abcboy (talk) 03:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I actually use that website to convert Jyutping to Yale. Aside from aesthetic reasons, it's easier for the readers to understand diacritics than tone numbers, so I consider Yale to be preferable. Besides, most of the names in other pages uses Yale. --超龍_「Chao」 03:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the website. I've never come across it. I would need some time to test it. It seems that this Yale is hard to Hongkongians to read. Anyway, do we also convert Pinyin into Yale as well, just to keep consistency? -Iosue (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't really matter if it is difficult for the Hongkongers to read, since they can already read the names. The romanization is only meant for the non-Cantonese speakers. As for consistency, it really isn't necessary. Pinyin is already the official system used in both Mainland China and Taiwan, so there's no need to use a system that isn't as widely used just to maintain consistency. --超龍_「Chao」

By consistency, our target audience is the large group of people who are English-based. I find it difficult to understand Pinyin myself. But if I read Yale, I just need to put myself into an "English mode" and that's it. Consistency means: A person that doesn't know any of the Pinyin and Jyutping, can read all three names by only learning / using a single system. That's why I really would like to see all 3 regions are notated by a single Yale or IPA system. -Iosue (talk) 07:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

As much as I dislike the pinyin system, it is the current standard and the most widely used system in romanizing Mandarin. In addition, a lot of members of our target audience don't use any of the romanization system used in Chinese, unless they're actually planning to learn the language. Besides, most romanization system in Mandarin has already been succeeded by Pinyin. I don't see anyone using Yale for romanizing Mandarin anymore. --超龍_「Chao」 07:22, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Neither do I. But I don't see many options other than Yale and IPA are able to transcribe all three languages. If most from our target audience don't know any Pinyin or Jyutping, I think Yale or IPA are probably easier for them to "guess" the pronunciation, serving the purpose of this page, if any. -Iosue (talk) 07:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

We don't really use IPA in rendering Japanese or Korean here. Besides, not everyone knows Yale or IPA either. I don't see any reason why we should force Mandarin and Cantonese to use one system. --超龍_「Chao」 07:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Because, for example, the letter J in Pinyin (voiced palato-alveolar affricate, IPA=/d͡ʒ/, Yale=j) and in Jyutping (palatal approximant, IPA /j/, Yale=y) are so different. Other affricate consonants guarantee chaos, unless we are expecting the readers to look up both systems by themselves and get acknowledged with all those differences. IPA is good for non-English speaking and international contexts. Yale is good for an English audience. -Iosue (talk) 08:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

We could always note that the romanization system used is different. The issue with IPA is that the characters used in that system would require taking a basic course in linguistics. I don't expect most readers to pronounce the words correctly, considering it's not their native tongue. Non-native speakers won't be able pronounces Beijing correctly. Besides, I think the target audience would be more familiar with the pinyin system than Yale, considering that the former is already used in romanizing Chinese names and places... --超龍_「Chao」 08:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Who are in our target audience actually? Are we actually referring to the same group of people? I am referring to someone who speaks English and has no knowledge in IPA, Pinyin or Jyutping. Then Yale seems to be the easiest to guess. If we assume our audience knows bits and pieces of Pinyin and then still use Jyutping for Hongkongian names, there will be problems. I want to ask again, what is the purpose of this list?

1. If this is to be some sort of an academic-worthy material to notate as accurate as possible, then we should use Pinyin, Jyutping and Wade-Giles for the three languages.
2. If this is to be some sort of a fun-to-know only meant to let the English audience try to guess the pronunciations in these 3 languages, then we should probably use Yales to notate all 3.
3. If this is to be some sort of linguistic comparison to be brought up to the international level, IPA will be the way to go.

-Iosue (talk) 09:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, besides, I think we should treat IPA symbols and IPA diacritics separately. See, I have been using Jyutping with IPA diacritics personally. I think this way could somehow work. But to put it into an international playground, well, let's just say no. -Iosue (talk) 09:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

My main reason for going against Yale is that it is an obsolete system, which is why I find Pinyin preferable.

As to why this list exist, it's the same reason why the other lists exist. If one wants to look up Chinese Pokemon names, it's more convenient to look through this list rather than go through each page separately. In addition, there are several hundred pages in this wiki that uses Pinyin, so I'd rather not go back and change them to another system just to make it consistent to this page. --超龍_「Chao」 09:34, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

How to do it is a question. Why do we want something is quite another. Yale may be obsolete. But still, Pinyin gets so confusing without prior knowledge. For example, Qu of Pinyin is something like /tsyː/ or /tʃyː/ (Yale: chyu). But if we look at "Qu", I'd probably go with /kuː/ or /kwɔː/ (Yale: ku / kwo), as "quo-" from "quote". This won't happen if you put up "chyu" in the first place. Pinyin may be popular but it is never as intuitive as Yale to an English speaker without prior knowledge. -Iosue (talk) 10:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Considering that pinyin is promoted by the PRC in other countries through foreign language courses, more people are likely going to learn pinyin anyway. To anyone who took courses in Chinese, Yale would confuse them after getting used to pinyin. Besides, you can argue the same thing about French, but we don't have a pronunciation guide on it. Anyone without prior knowledge of French would likely mispronounce papillon and Bastille (as I did). --超龍_「Chao」 10:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

French is an entirely different matter as it is already spelt in Latin letters. This discussion is about a good method of Romanization to take, while Pinyin is not. -Iosue (talk) 12:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

My point still stands. People looking for Chinese names on the wiki are more likely to be familiar with pinyin. It's also the most accessible romanization out there and it's a standard considered by the ISO. --超龍_「Chao」 13:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Uh, sorry, but I'm afraid I'm a little bit confused. While I can do both Yale and Jyutping, I want to know whether I should do Yale first or Jyutping first. Or should I do both at the same time?---Meowstic- (talk) 14:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Pinyin is more a hegemonical standard than a standard de facto. Anyway, my point stands unchallenged: People who don't know Pinyin finds it difficult to interpret Pinyin, while those who know, can still be able to guess off something written with Yale. As for the time being, I think we have a machine to convert Jyutping into Yale. So strategically speaking, doing Jyutping first can reduce the risk. -Iosue (talk) 14:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Whether you think it's a hegemonical standard or not, you can not deny that it is the most widespread romanization used for Mandarin. I'm trying to be objective here. This isn't the place to promote what romanization you find best represent Mandarin phonetics or discuss political implications in using certain romanization systems. Most people are not going to know Pinyin or any other romanization system for that matter and I cringed every time I hear a Chinese name badly pronounced, but that would not stop Pinyin from not being widely used.

I do understand your point, but our target audience are English speakers who are more likely familar with the current system and possibly Mandarin speakers who are familiar with pinyin. Most of the visitors in this site aren't even going to bother looking up Chinese names. This site isn't a place to learn Chinese or any other languages. Anyone who wants to should take foreign language courses instead. Mandarin and English also have different phonetics. If one wants to know how the words really sound like, they could just put it on Google Translate to hear a close approximation of it. While pinyin has it own flaws, other romanization systems also have its own shortcomings. Yale's shortcoming is its lack of popularity and use in the recent decades. Whatever romanization system we use will still result to non-native speakers mispronouncing it (or in IPA's case, find it unreadable). This page isn't an academic paper in comparing linguistic differences nor is it a fun-to-know how to pronounce the names, it's merely a list of names using the current convention in romanization. Moreover, Wikipedia also uses Pinyin. All the other pages in this site that list Chinese names also use Pinyin. Changing the romanization systems used in those pages is just plain unnecessary, considering that there are hundreds of them.

I'll summarized my main points:

1. It has the most widespread use worldwide.
2. It's currently the official romanization system used in both Mainland and Taiwan.
3. It is the current international standard and the current academic convention.

The reason why we use Pinyin is that it's the most common method currently used, just like why we use Hepburn for Japanese.

As for the Cantonese, you can do either. In addition, some of the individual Pokémon articles have their Cantonese names listed with romanization in Yale, which could use some checking... --超龍_「Chao」 02:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think if we continue with this discussion, nothing will come out of it. What about we just summarize all we have said and wait for some third-person opinions? Here's mine:

1. Pinyin received its standing politically and hegemonically. It is not a standard de facto (it is not coming to this because it's simply how people enjoy using it, but rather pushed by certain individual polical powers). For Bulbapedia's neutral ground on politics, the popularity of Pinyin should be brought out of question as its popularity is a result of politics.
2. The purpose of this article is not for somebody who CAN read Sinic languages. It is for somebody who CANNOT. Therefore it is preferable to use a system that can be guessed easily without prior training.

System	Compatibility	Features	Politics	Samples
IPA	Compatible to all	Accurate notation Prior trainings required	Developed by an independent organization Politics-free	mi̯ɑʊ̯4 wu̯ɑ1 tʂʊŋ3tsɨ5 (China) kḙi jìː tsŭːŋ tsĭː (Hong Kong)
Pinyin	Chinese, Taiwanese	Inaccurate for very few Taiwanese words Prior trainings required	Developed and promoted by a Communist-based country Not politics-free	miào wā zhǒngzi
Yale	Compatible to all Converters from Pinyin and Jyutping	Widely used a few decades ago Tailored for English-speaking world No trainings required	Developed by an independent organization Politics-free	myâu wā jŭngdz (China) kèih yih júng jí (Hong Kong)
Jyutping	Cantonese only	No diacritics but numberings Designed in a linguistic perspective Prior trainings required	Developed by an independent organization Politics-free	kei4 ji6 zung2 zi2

This summarizes my arguments. -Iosue (talk) 05:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we're getting nowhere here. I have already brought this topic up to the rest of the staff members. Hopefully, we could get some feedback from others soon. Until then, we'll just maintain the status quo. --超龍_「Chao」 06:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. We don't have any conclusion to change this for the moment. -Iosue (talk) 06:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi, everybody! Here's my two cents. While I find linguistics interesting, I don't know a drop of Chinese, so I guess that gives some insight into the "English-speaking reader who doesn't know any Chinese" mind :P I do like to look at Chinese names and articles like this though cause I find this stuff interesting ^^' so ya, anything I say here is from my browsing experience and reading all the points above.

Personally, I'd say completely ditch Jyutping since it has all those numberings in it and it makes literally no sense to me :P I suppose if you have the prior training it all comes together but I find it really confusing to look at. Same with IPA, while it is nice that IPA is accurate and works for Mandarin and Cantonese, I look at it and I understand it about as well as I understand Chinese writing itself (not at all). While you'd probably laugh at me if I tried to pronounce based on Pinyin or Yale, I feel like it gives me a closer idea of the pronunciation and it actually reads as romanised to me. furthermore, the system I seem to see around the internet most is Pinyin, and is also the only one I had actually heard of prior to this discussion. Yale seems to have a few advantages, such as being politics-free and that it can be used for both Mandarin and Cantonese, but if it's fallen into disuse, Pinyin might be better for the Mandarin side. I would still prefer Yale over Jyutping and IPA regardless. --ZestyCactus 05:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Eh, actually, I think we should keep both Yale and Jyutping and let people switch between them, if that's possible. The numbers in Jyutping has another unique meaning as it tells the exact tone of the word; that is, of course, if you know what the nine tones are. The Yale has only the four basic tones in Pinyin and there is no way to tell the other five tones, if I hadn't remembered wrong. For IPA, well, it is very uncommon among most Hongkongers, but dictionaries uses IPA sometimes when telling the Cantonese pronounciation. I admit that it is much easier to guess the pronunciations with Yale, and I indeed had a difficult time dealing with 'j' sound in Jyutping and confused it with 'z' and 'y'. However, sometimes the guessing could be quite off (like how Bulbasaur's kèih actually also rises in tone later, but Yale can't actually tell that. Try it.) It could be only me, though. I think I'll be starting to update the Yale along with Jyutping for now. ---Meowstic- (talk) 13:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

How does kèih rise in tone later? I think it is a simple descending tone. And I cannot agree with Yale having only 4 tones. Cantonese_phonology#Tones has a good table of all 9 tones in Yale. But regarding what we Hongkongians use, I don't think it really matters. All phonetics are rare in Hong Kong, for Cantonese, English and other languages. People like to spend less time understanding phonetics and prefer simply imitation. -Iosue (talk) 13:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)