Honoring Chinese Names - a Lesson in Pronunciation

Getting a person’s name right is often the first step we take to building a relationship grounded in respect, understanding and goodwill. It’s often the recruitment and student services teams here at The College who take that first step with students who inquire about study abroad with us. This semester, Drew Villierme-Lightfoot, Program Manager at The College, shared his knowledge of Chinese names with the teams to boost our collective knowledge and awareness. Here’s his report on the lunch-and-learn session. Thanks, Drew!

Higher Education continues to see large Chinese student enrollments. Study Abroad is no exception. To best support and welcome our students, we must have a better understanding of how to pronounce Chinese names. Chinese names include sounds and spelling conventions that are not easily decipherable for English speakers and as an organization.

On May 2nd and 16th, I ran sessions on "Honoring Chinese Names" for Glenside and Overseas Staff and Faculty. During these sessions, we discussed key aspects of the Mandarin Chinese such as characters, naming conventions, tone, and the system on Pinyin.

Pinyin is a system of transliteration which is used in Mainland China for writing Chinese characters in Latin script. This system uses letters like X, Z, Zh, S, C, Y and more to indicate particular sounds that are often challenging for non-Chinese speakers.

During the session, we discussed some of the more challenging sounds and their corresponding letters. Many examples were used to aid in understanding. Through lots of practice, our staff was able to both pronounce and write Chinese names and better understand the basics of the Pinyin system.

Through practice and exposure, we are better supporting our incoming Chinese students, but the first step is pronouncing names!