Oolong Tea Pronunciation Guide

With Audio

This is a rough-and-ready Mandarin pronunciation guide for Taiwanese and Chinese tea. The American English pronunciations use real words whenever possible, and hyphenated spellings are said with a continuous sound (she-ong = sheeyong). The pinyin includes tone marks which are an integral part of the pronunciation. Without the proper tones a native Mandarin speaker is not likely to understand these words.

For those who want to plunge right in, here is the list. A detailed explanation can be found at the bottom of this page.

Teas listed on this web site:

Chinese Characters	Pinyin	Wade-Giles	American English
	wu1 long2 cha2	wu lung ch'a	oo long cha
Oolong Tea (烏龍茶) audio pronunciation
	long2 feng4 xia2	lung feng hsia	long fung shee-a
Long Feng Xia (龍鳳峽) audio pronunciation
	wu3 ling2	wu ling	oo ling
Wu Ling (武陵) audio pronunciation
	dong4 ding3 mi4 xiang1	tung ting ming xiang	dong ding mee she-ong
Dong Ding Ming Xiang (凍頂蜜香) audio pronunciation
	sha1 lin2 qi1	sha lin ch'i	shaw lean chee
Shan Ling Xi (杉林溪) audio pronunciation
	zhang1 shu4 hu2	chang shu hu	jong shoe who
Zhong Shu Hu (樟樹湖) audio pronunciation
	cui4 luan2	ts'ui luan	tsway loo-ann
Tsuei Luan (翠巒) audio pronunciation
	shi2 zhuo1	shih cho	shh dz-woe
Shi Zuo (石棹) audio pronunciation
	si4 ji4	szu chi	sih jee
Four Season (四季) audio pronunciation
	chen2 nian2 lao3 cha2 wang2	ch'en nien lao ch'a wang	chen nee-ann l-how cha wong
Aged Tea (陳年老茶) audio pronunciation
	bai2 hao2	pai hao	buy how
Bai Hao (白毫) audio pronunciation
	bao1 zhong3	pao chung	b-how jong
Bao Zhong (包種) audio pronunciation

Other Taiwanese and Chinese teas:

Chinese Characters	Pinyin	Wade-Giles	American English
	tie3 guan1 yin1	t'ieh kuan yin	tea-ay gwan yin
	long2 jing3	lung ching	long jing
	shui3 jin1 gui1	shui chin kui	sh-way jeen g-way
	rou4 gui4	jou kui	row g-way
	pu3 er3	p'u erh	poo er
	huang2 guan1 yin1	huang kuan yin	hwong gwan yin
	bai2 mu3 dan1	pai mu tan	buy moo dan

Pinyin pronunciation table:

Tones
1	high and level
2	rising from mid-pitch to the level of tone 1
3	falling and rising
4	falling sharply
5	neutral tone

Vowels
a	similar to the 'ah' of 'hah'	ang	a Mandarin 'a' followed by 'ng'
e	similar to the 'er' of 'her'	eng	a Mandarin 'e' followed by 'ng'
i	similar to the 'ee' of 'bee'	er	a Mandarin 'e' with the tongue curled back
o	similar to 'or'	en	similar to the 'un' of 'fun'
u	similar to the 'u' of 'flute'	ei	similar to the 'ei' of 'weigh'
ai	similar to the 'ai' of 'aisle'	ou	similar to the 'ou' of 'dough'
ao	similar to the 'au' of 'sauerkraut'	ye/ie	similar to a short 'yeah'
an	similar to the 'an' of 'ban'	yu/u	as in the French 'u' of 'la lune'

Consonants
m, f, ch, sh	same as English	q	as in the 'ch' of 'cheese' - tongue tip is held down
b, d, n, g, s, w, y	similar to English	x	as in the 'sh' of 'ship' - tongue tip is held down
p, t, k	similar to English but with more aspiration	zh	as in the 'j' of 'jam' - tongue is curled back
l	similar to the 'l' in 'health'	r	as in 's' of 'pleasure'
h	similar to English but slightly guttural	z	as in the 'ds' of 'woods'
j	as in the 'j' of 'jungle' - tongue tip is held down	c	as in the 'ts' of 'hurts'

Discussion:

There are several systems of Romanization for Chinese characters. The two most common are Pinyin (the official Romanization of Mainland China) and Wade-Giles. Taiwan uses a modified Wade-Giles system that does not include apostrophes. So instead of T'aipei the capital of Taiwan is written Taipei.

What difference does an apostrophe make? In the Wade-Giles system, a 't' without an apostrophe should be pronounced as 'd', and a 'p' without an apostrophe should be pronounced 'b', and a 'k' without an apostrophe should be pronounced 'g'.

This creates all sorts of confusion for western speakers. For many years Wade-Giles was the standard for converting Chinese characters to western spellings, so we had such spellings as Peking for Beijing, taoism for daoism and tofu for dofu.

This confusion extends to the world of tea. Neither Pinyin nor Wade-Giles reflects the popular spelling Oolong. This particular spelling is not found in any of the common Romanization systems, so is probably a simple popularization (like chow mein).

In an ideal world there would be just one system of Romanization that is applied universally. Unfortunately, Romanization has become a political issue in Taiwan because legislators are reluctant to adopt Mainland Chinese standards. It could also be argued that the use of Wade-Giles upholds tradition since it has a much longer history than Hanyu Pinyin.

Talk of traditional Romanization is trivial, however, compared with the much more important topic of maintaining the Chinese written language. Taiwan continues to use traditional Chinese characters whereas Mainland China has switched to a simplified writing system. These simplified characters have fewer strokes than their traditional counterparts and were developed to promote literacy. Many overseas Chinese have expressed concern that the rich heritage of the Chinese language is compromised with this simpler writing system.