How to pronounce Oolong...

[depravitea]

At first I pronounced Oolong much like it's spelled - Ew-long. Then I read that it was pronounced Wu Long - like whoo-long. Apparently that means Black Dragon, and it was named such due to the black curling of the leaves looking much like a dragons' tail. Anyway, I tried to get in the habbit saying Wu Long as opposed to Oolong, but I have gotten a few funny looks...

Anyone have any input? Am I completely off base with the whole Wu Long thing?

[wyardley]

'wulong' is the Hanyu pinyin for the Mandarin pronunciation of 乌龙. Just because it's written 'wu long' in Pinyin doesn't mean it's pronounced as it would be if you read 'wu long' phonetically in English - the system is consistent, but it's written to accurately represent a different language which has different sounds and concepts than Western languages*. The 'oo' sound is closer to the pronunciation in English. The 'ong' sound in Mandarin Chinese is more like "oh" than "ah".

Also, most / all Chinese languages are tonal, meaning that a word with the same phonetic sound can have several distinct tones. 'wū' is a high flat tone, and 'lóng' is a rising tone.

You can listen to a native speaker say 'wulong cha' (oolong tea) in Mandarin at:
http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/% ... C%B6/44396

The reason that you see both spellings is that "oolong" has existed in the Western world well before the systems of Pinyin in use now were created. So phonetic spellings (or older romanization systems) were used. "Wulong" or "wūlóng" is more precise, but also leads to some confusion and mispronunciation.

* see also http://www.1morepeat.com/knowledge/mand ... iation.htm

[scruffmcgruff]

Hmm, I've actually wondered the same thing. I've only heard it said a few times by people who actually speak Chinese, but for the life of me I can't remember how they pronounced it!

AFAIK they are just different romanizations of the same word (I think Wulong is Wade-Giles and Oolong is Pinyin, but I might have that backwards) so they technically shouldn't have different pronunciations, but it sure isn't obvious which is closer, is it?

[Edit: Thanks Will, I must've spent too long editing my post. I guess I did have it backwards...]

[depravitea]

Thanks for taking the time to post all of that, I appreciate it. The pronunciation website is pretty cool, by the way. Sounds like Oolong pronounced phonetically much like it's written (ooh-long) is the way to go.
Thanks very much!

[Beidao]

Is it just me, or does the site with the sound file first have a female voice pronouning it like OOlong and than a male voice pronouncing it more like WUlong? I pronounce it like the female voice, which is the most logical way to pronounce "oo" for a Swedish-speaker.

[MarshalN]

AFAIK they are just different romanizations of the same word (I think Wulong is Wade-Giles and Oolong is Pinyin, but I might have that backwards) so they technically shouldn't have different pronunciations, but it sure isn't obvious which is closer, is it?

Wulong is pinyin, and oolong is not any of the standard romanization. In Wade-Giles it should be Wu-long. Yes, the dash is important

The file on the site is actually accurate. I actually don't hear much of a difference between the male and the female, but different people hear different things....

[xuancheng]

Wulong is pinyin, and oolong is not any of the standard romanization. In Wade-Giles it should be Wu-long. Yes, the dash is important

Shouln't that be wu-lung?

[MarshalN]

Duh, yes.... that was stupid

Thanks for the correction