1 hour ago, liuzhou said:
No one changed the pronunciation. They changed the transliteration from something invented by a half-deaf Cambridge don and his student into something much more sensible. The capital was never, ever pronounced "pee-king" in Chinese. It was always more like "bay-jing".
Similarly, things like kung-po chicken are meaningless to the vast majority of Chinese speakers. It has always been "gong bao (pronounced bow as in what you do when you meet the queen) " Ask for wontons in 99% of Chinese restaurants in China and they'll be baffled.
Anyway, probably enough Chinese language for one day. I have to put up with it every day!
Dinner tonight was a couple of home-made hamburgers and chips (fries). No pic.
I was not very clear in what I said. Not wanting to belabor the point but the reason I said "English pronunciation" was because I realize the Chinese pronunciations of their own words had not changed but rather the English understanding of the way they were actually pronounced is what was clarified.
