This material contains text from the Chinese Good News brochure, written in Pīnyīn. It also includes English ruby text that has been bundled with the Pīnyīn text that it shows the meaning of. Thus, while making better use of limited display real estate on mobile devices and requiring less paper to print out compared to corresponding 3-line material, this material provides us Mandarin-learners with assistance in the two language aspects we require in order to be able to discuss or study the Good News brochure with someone in Mandarin:
This Pīnyīn-English material is in web format. It takes up less space than, and is less complex than, corresponding 3-line (Chinese characters-Pīnyīn-English) material.
Being in web format allows this material to benefit from the advantages of this format, including:
Reading just Pīnyīn may take some getting used to if you’re accustomed to reading (or trying to read) Hànzì (Chinese characters), but going by first principles of linguistics (the scientific study of language) rather than mere human traditions, it should be more than worth the effort. You should at least give yourself a chance to get used to it.
“One of the basic assumptions of modern linguistics [the scientific study of language]…is that speech is primary and writing is secondary”. Yes, speech is the foundation on which writing must be built, not vice versa. (That is just a natural result of the way Jehovah made us—he gave our bodies the built-in ability to produce speech, but writing requires external aids such as pens and paper, keyboards and screens, etc.) Thus, it is very good that Pīnyīn represents Mandarin speech so straightforwardly and easily, and that it enables us to focus on speech. Yes, while Chinese characters, as beautiful and traditional as they are, demand distractingly large commitments of precious time and energy just for themselves, Pīnyīn frees and empowers us to focus on communicating the good news.
Indeed, in our ministry specifically, we definitely need understanding what we hear and speaking much more than we need reading and writing. (1 Cor. 14:8–11) So, while many who have received traditional Mandarin language instruction have been influenced to believe that being able to read and write characters is the ultimate goal for a Mandarin language student to aspire to, actually, for us Kingdom publishers, our ultimate goal regarding Mandarin should be being able to understand and speak spoken Mandarin, so that we can preach and teach the good news effectively, from our hearts, using Mandarin speech. So, really, for us Kingdom publishers, being able to read, understand, and write Pīnyīn, which directly represents Mandarin speech, is a more relevant and important (and easy-to-achieve) goal to aspire to than being able to read, understand, and write characters, which unfortunately have become this thing on their own that has warped and obfuscated Mandarin speech rather than supporting it.
But, is Pīnyīn even really a writing system? Interestingly, the Chinese national standard Zhōngguó Mángwén (中国盲文/中國盲文, Chinese Braille) is basically a transliteration or conversion of Pīnyīn into braille letters. Braille is obviously a writing system, so Pīnyīn must also be a writing system, not just a pronunciation aid.
Also, as a Sumerian proverb stated, “a scribe whose hand matches the mouth, he is indeed a scribe”. Pīnyīn can indeed be used to write anything that can be spoken in Modern Standard Mandarin, so it qualifies as a full writing system in that fundamental sense as well.
(That Pīnyīn is a full writing system for any and all Modern Standard Mandarin speech also means that, in addition to it being correct to say that “Pīnyīn is Chinese” because it was developed in China by Chinese people, it is also quite correct to say that “Pīnyīn is Chinese” in the sense that, even if it isn’t Hànzì, it is indeed written Mandarin Chinese—it’s not as if Pīnyīn were written English or French or something!)
Really, after a bit of research into what the definition of a “writing system” is, it becomes evident that a system like Pīnyīn should naturally be considered a writing system, in spite of the efforts of worldly Chinese intellectuals to artificially and unjustly keep Pīnyīn down in order to protect and enshrine the traditional Hànzì writing system that they have so much invested in.
Since Pīnyīn is not just a pronunciation aid, but a full writing system, it is not “training wheels”—it’s regular wheels. Chinese characters are like non-round wheels—more difficult than necessary. While some may find non-round wheels “interesting”, or maybe even “beautiful”, much of the time we just need to get from point A to point B as quickly and easily as possible. We may even need to do so to save someone’s life. For example, what kind of wheels should be on an ambulance? That’s the kind of “wheels” we should be using in our life-saving work.
Practically speaking, we should keep in mind that, as many in the Mandarin field have found, by investing the minimal amount of time and effort needed to learn and get used to the Pīnyīn system, we will be equipped to always be able to quickly and easily read anything in Mandarin that’s written in Pīnyīn, and we will always be able to quickly and easily write anything in Mandarin using Pīnyīn. In contrast, even those who are fairly familiar with Chinese characters will at times come across unfamiliar or forgotten characters whose meanings and pronunciations they can only guess at. Also, even those who are fairly familiar with Chinese characters will at times be completely unable to remember or figure out how to write a certain character.
(By the way, since, as mentioned above, the Pīnyīn system was developed in China by Chinese people, it is a product of Chinese culture, and it is a part of Chinese culture. So, using Pīnyīn is not an imposition of Western culture—it is an application of Chinese culture! In fact, the Chinese developers of Pīnyīn of their own free will purposely chose to base it on the international Latin alphabet (it’s not just the English alphabet) so that users of Pīnyīn would benefit from its familiarity. Experience has shown that they were right to do so, and that’s what should be most important to us—not mere human cultures or traditions, but what works best for Jehovah’s work.)
For a more in-depth discussion about how we in the Chinese field should view Pīnyīn, see the article “Pīnyīn Was Plan A”. Here is a quote from it:
“That there are so many different words in modern Mandarin that sound the same is not a good reason not to use Pīnyīn, any more than it is a good reason not to speak Mandarin.”
(The login information required is the same as for anywhere else on 3lines.org. If you’re already on the 3lines.org site, you can find this article in the folder Misc ▶ Articles.)
This is not a publication of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, and if a Good News brochure is available, this material should be used along with it, not instead of it. This material is only meant to help publishers working in the Mandarin field, so that they can more quickly become more effective at preaching and teaching the good news to Mandarin-speaking people without being unnecessarily obstructed and delayed by the complex and difficult-to-learn-and-remember Chinese characters.
IMPORTANT: Please do not use this material as an excuse or as a crutch to just “get by” or “muddle through” at Chinese meetings or Bible discussions. By all means, make good use of this material in such settings, but most importantly, use this material to help you really improve your knowledge and understanding of the Chinese language, so that you can 1) listen with more understanding and 2) speak more effectively from your heart while praising Jehovah and preaching and teaching the good news in the Chinese field.
The English translation follows these principles:
This approach to translating can sometimes result in English translations that don’t follow traditional English usage patterns. However, the purpose of the material is not necessarily to move the hearts of English-speaking publishers through the use of their mother tongue. Rather, the purpose of the material is to help publishers to understand and speak Mandarin better, so that they can ultimately better move the hearts of Mandarin-speaking Bible students through the use of their mother tongue.
The regular portions of this Imitate book material have been carefully translated, rendered, and proofread. Thus, those who are learning Mandarin can reliably use them to help increase their insight into the meanings of Mandarin expressions, as well as their insight into how these expressions are used in various contexts. Of course, the proofread portions of this material may still contain errors. If you find any, please email me to let me know.
Any unproofread material is rendered with a lower-contrast grey background. It may be proofread later as time allows.
This web resource is divided into different files, which all reside inside a master folder. This master folder has been “zipped” into the zip file linked to below, which can be saved or downloaded and unzipped for offline use:
To download and unzip this file on an iPad or an iPhone/iPod touch using GoodReader 4:
To download and unzip this file on a PC or a Mac:
Another way to use this web material offline is to use the EPUB file available at the Good News Brochure (Pīnyīn-English, Scriptures, EPUB) page. In addition to allowing for offline use, EPUB files can also be annotated (highlighting and notes can be added to them) in apps such as iBooks, which runs on the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod touch, and now the Mac as well.
Of course, in addition to being downloaded, this web resource’s content can also be printed out from your web browser.
Check the Links News blog (news feed, Twitter) for news regarding updates to this web resource, and also for news regarding other resources prepared by our fellow workers in the Chinese field. You may also find it interesting to check out the tiandi.info blog (news feed, Twitter), which is about various things related to the Chinese field. (Email me if you need login information, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.)
To follow the Twitter account for the Links News and tiandi.info blogs, click or tap this button:
If you have any questions or comments, e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca.
I hope you enjoy using the material. May it help you to serve more effectively and joyfully in the Mandarin field.
Your fellow worker,
Wayne Wong
8 For if the trumpet sounds an indistinct call, who will get ready for battle? 9 In the same way, unless you with the tongue use speech that is easily understood, how will anyone know what is being said? You will, in fact, be speaking into the air. 10 It may be that there are many kinds of speech in the world, and yet no kind is without meaning. 11 For if I do not understand the sense of the speech, I will be a foreigner to the one speaking, and the one speaking will be a foreigner to me. ˄