How do you pronounce Yueh-Fu?

May 11, 2007 7:09 AM

How do you pronounce Yueh-Fu in English?

I am getting married tomorrow, and one of the readings is from a book of poetry. At the bottom of the poem (entitled "I Want To Be Your Friend") it says "from The Yueh-Fu, adapted from the Chinese by Arthur Waley". There will be some Chinese relatives at the wedding, so if I could get the correct pronunciation of "Yueh-Fu" in English I'd be grateful.

posted by The Card Cheat to writing & language (12 comments total)

hm, the words in Chinese are 樂府. I am not able to record the audio for you now, and it's hard to explain beyond "yueh-fu" itself if you're not familiar with the basics of Chinese pronunciation. maybe someone else can do that. If any of your friends has basic Chinese (1 year or so) ask them to pronounce "yue fu" for you (this is pinyin, standard notation for Chinese pronunciation). I wouldn't worry too much about the tone.
posted by bread-eater at 7:31 AM on May 11, 2007

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that you be able to pronounce "Yueh-Fu" like a Chinese person would. According to http://www.china-guide.com/culture/poetry.html, it seems that this would be a poem from the Han Music Bureau. You might want to say that instead.

Looking at the Chinese English dictionaries online (http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/wordlook.pl), it looks like Yue is pronounced Yue with a declining intonation, and fu is a rising intonation. When put together, the two syllables are said down, then up. Again, unless you grew up speaking Chinese, you will still have a horrible accent.
posted by Comrade_robot at 7:34 AM on May 11, 2007

乐府 / 樂府 is a 4th tone + 3rd tone.

4th tone falls
3rd tone dips (falls/rises)

Thus: yoo-eh foo-oo

"yoo-eh" is one continuous sound. Hit the final /eh/ (it's difficult not to make it drop that way)

"fu" is tricky. Start /foo/ and drop your chin to your chest ... then bring it back up. (That's how you learn to HEAR the dip ... don't actually do it that way when the big moment arrives).

Google "Mandarin Tones" for more help.
posted by RavinDave at 7:34 AM on May 11, 2007

You won't get the tones sorted by tomorrow. This is how you say it:

You - Air - Foo (as in Fool)
posted by priorpark17 at 7:36 AM on May 11, 2007

ooay foo

The "oo" sound at the beginning kinda runs into the "ay" sound almost as if you were saying the word "way." Nobody is going to reasonably expect you to get the tones on this one so don't sweat that.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:37 AM on May 11, 2007

I think priorpark17's "you-air-foo" is pretty good. make the "you" as narrow as you can. the Chinese "u" in "yu" is not actually a vowel sound used in English, so it will be hard to get. And light on the "r" in "air." "Foo" is just fine. And of course, join the "you-air" together because that is "yueh"
posted by bread-eater at 7:40 AM on May 11, 2007

Best I could come up with: say "yeah" as if you're answering someone's question. Then replace the "eaa" sound with a short "u". Despite how it's romanized, there is no "aye" sound at the end.
posted by casarkos at 8:24 AM on May 11, 2007

When I wrote /eh/ I was trying to approximate the sound of a pulled /e/ as in "get".
posted by RavinDave at 8:56 AM on May 11, 2007

The nice thing about third tone in the second syllable is that you can just use an unstressed syllable in English and get a reasonable approximation. If you say YOOEH-foo, you won't be far off.

Comrade_robot is right: "Yueh-Fu" isn't the name of a poet, it's a genre. But it would sound odd to say "a Ministry of Music (or Music Bureau) poem," so I'd go with the Chinese phrase.
posted by languagehat at 9:23 AM on May 11, 2007

Do you know for sure if your Chinese relatives are Mandarin-speaking? If they're not, you're not speaking their dialect anyway.
posted by bread-eater at 10:38 AM on May 11, 2007

On this flash video, the speaker is saying 'yuefu' as part of the phrase 'han yuefu' at the point when the great big timer on the screen reads 00:04 to 00:05 seconds.
posted by Abiezer at 11:17 AM on May 11, 2007

Thanks everyone! For the record, the person doing the reading isn't Chinese...that's the problem.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:17 PM on May 11, 2007