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51 minutes ago, sartoric said:

How do you pronounce Tso ?

The problem (if there is one) is that the romanization of 左 as "Tso", is using the very outdated Wade-Giles system long abandoned by everyone except America.

In Pinyin, the official modern romanization as adopted by everyone from the Chinese government to the International Standards Organization to the United Nations, it is "zuǒ"

In standard Chinese, as romanized in Pinyin,  'z' is pronounced somewhere between 'ts' as in cats and 'ds' as in buds, leaning more towards 'ds', especially in a Hunan accent which is what the General had.

'uo' is a diphthong which glides from an 'oo" sound into an 'oh' sound.

So, in total we have dz-oo-oh. But then there is the added difficulty that Chinese is a tonal language.. This 'zuǒ' is the third tone, as indicated by the diacritic, and is a falling then rising tone.

I am without microphone here, but will try later to post a recording.

By the way, as well as being a surname, 左  means 'left' as opposed to 'right.

I guess General Left's Chicken doesn't sound so appealing. And no, I've never eaten it!

50 minutes ago, sartoric said:

How do you pronounce Tso ?

The problem (if there is one) is that the romanization of 左 as "Tso", is using the very outdated Wade-Giles system long abandoned by everyone except America.

In Pinyin, the official modern romanization as adopted by everyone from the Chinese government to the International Standards Organization to the United Nations, it is "zuǒ"

In standard Chinese, as romanized in Pinyin,  'z' is pronounced somewhere between 'ts' as in cats and 'ds' as in buds, leaning more towards 'ds', especially in a Hunan accent which is what the General had.

'uo' is a diphthong which glides from an 'oo" sound into an 'oh' sound.

So, in total we have dz-oo-oh. But then there is the added difficulty that Chinese is a tonal language.. This 'zuǒ' is the third tone, as indicated by the diacritic, and is a falling then rising tone.

I am without microphone here, but will try later to post a recording.

48 minutes ago, sartoric said:

How do you pronounce Tso ?

The problem (if there is one) is that the romanization of 左 as "Tso", is in that it is using the very outdated Wade-Giles system long abandoned by everyone except America. In Pinyin, the official modern romanization as adopted by everyone from the Chinese government to the International Standards Organization to the United Nations, it is "zuǒ"

In standard Chinese, as romanized in Pinyin,  'z' is pronounced somewhere between 'ts' as in cats and 'ds' as in buds, leaning more towards 'ds', especially in a Hunan accent which is what the General had.

'uo' is a diphthong which glides from an 'oo" sound into an 'oh' sound.

So, in total we have dz-oo-oh. But then there is the added difficulty that Chinese is a tonal language.. This 'zuǒ' is the third tone, as indicated by the diacritic, and is a falling then rising tone.

I am without microphone here, but will try later to post a recording.