Pronunciation

[chamekke]

Heh.

Reminds me of this.

[Wesli]

French accent: pooair

[Jagori]

It also depends on the dialect. 3 native Mandarin speakers I know say it 3 different ways - "poor" drawn out to two syllables, "pu-R" (as in the name of the letter R), and "pwur". I tend to say it close to the second way.

[doyoulovedee]

Heh.

Reminds me of this.

[hop_goblin]

Heh.

Reminds me of this.

Good Call!

[tony shlongini]

It's spelled "puerh", but it's pronounced "throatwarbler mangrove".

[hop_goblin]

It's spelled "puerh", but it's pronounced "throatwarbler mangrove".

HAHAH good one!

[heavydoom]

the question posed here is like asking : what is the meaning of life? why is the sky blue?

[Dizzwave]

the question posed here is like asking : what is the meaning of life? why is the sky blue?

lol, true dat.
I say, "poo-wirr", and when I'm by myself in the car or something, I do each syllable with an up-down-up tone. But I'm probably nowhere close to correct (as is any answer to "what is the meaning of life" -- it's all just useless mental gymnastics).

[heavydoom]

some call pu simply black tea.

[silverneedles]

poo-uhhr

http://www.xuezhongwen.net/chindict/chi ... =1&wdeac=1
^
yixing sounds like EEE-Schwing (a-la Wayne's World)

teaspring has sounds on most of their teas

http://www.teaspring.com/Jin-Fan-San-Ji.asp
http://www.teaspring.com/Menghai-Xing-Xiang-93.asp

[zellie]

In otherwords, try not to think about it as much as possible haha. Chinese pronounciation is indeed difficult for non-native speakers. But it's nice to know I'm not a complete failure for pronouncing it the way I do, anyhow. Thanks for your replies!

[heavydoom]

in cantonese you say it this way : beau lay.

Well that explains that. All the puerh jars at my local shop say "Polay."

When I was taking my eastern bodywork training, we were taught basic pronunciation, I think Mandarin. This went on for a major portion of the theory courses. Still, at best I rarely have more than a vague idea of how to pronounce things. Add to that the difficulty of the chinese version of diacritical marks, and mostly I'm utterly lost. Then top it off with the fact that many of the sounds in the Chinese dialects are not even sounds we learn to produce here in the west... well. *throws hands up in the air and clutches at aching brain*

trust me on this, oh geeky girl, learning mandarin is easier than cantonese. much easier. in cantonese you can have one word that can have 6 different meanings just by changing the different tonal variations of the word.

the word dog can also mean nine that can also mean enough that can also mean a rude word for a man's body part. so be very careful with pronounciation of chinese words in cantonese.

[brandon]

For the whiteies:

I used to say poo-air, a girl from Taiwan corrected me to say more like "pour".

I have heard Chinese people online (7 leaves tea video IIRC) say poo-air, though.

A (very white) teashop owner here just attended an STI class on pu'erh and also says like pour.

To me, the different teaspring recordings all sound different, esp old aged.

[Mary R]

the question posed here is like asking : what is the meaning of life? why is the sky blue?

The meaning of life is to live a life of meaning and the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering.