Sze-Yu
Lo Sze-Yu and more behind the name My name is Lo Sze-Yu. I can introduce my name in several language. Cantonese: 我嘅名係Lo Sze-Yu。(粤语拼音) German: Mein Name ist Lo Sze-Yu. Japanese: 私の名前は「ら しう」です。(プライバシーのため、漢字に変換しないようにさせていただきます) Korean: 내 이름은 라시우。 Mandarin: 我的名字是Luo Shiyu。(华语拼音) I am a Cantonese. I was born in Canton and I have lived in Canton for more then twenty years before I went to study in Singapore. After that, I came back to work in Canton now. In my opinion, the most original pronunciation of my name should be in Cantonese, which would be Lo Sze-Yu if written in alphabet form. However, all the files, my ID card, passport, degree certificates and other documents mentioning my name, wrote my name as Luo Shiyu, which is in Mandarin Pin Yin. Although I call myself Lo Sze-Yu, I get used to introduce myself as Luo Shiyu, just like what I was taught to do. All my Chinese Language and Literature was taught in Mandarin. What is worse, Cantonese was not treated as a language but only a dialect. When I was in Year 4, my English teacher, who is a Chinese, told all her pupils to find each of them an English name. So I found the name "Cissy" for myself. "Cissy" has the same pronunciation to how my mother calls me. But this name was not used so often and it was changed to "Cecilia" later on to avoid misunderstanding of sissy. The first foreign teacher I met was named Joanna. At that time, I was 14 years old and it was the first time I noticed that to pronounce “YU” in my first name correctly is not an easy job to some English speaking people. From then on, I began to met more foreign people from America, Singapore, Germany, Myanmar and other nations and "Cecilia" was used more often. After going abroad and knowing more about this world, I have confidence to say: Cantonese is a language. I realized that Cantonese language is facing a crisis and I am responsible to protect it, my mother language. Frankly speaking, I do not know how I should spell my name in Cantonese Pin Yin until I started to use italki.com. Within the education I have for more than 20 years, no one taught me about that and I do not really have a chance to learn relevant things systematically. I am glad to see italki.com put Chinese(Cantonese) under the language list. Therefore, I went to look up for references and confirmed that my name should be spelled in Lo Sze-Yu to represent Cantonese pronunciation. Hello world. My name is Lo Sze-Yu.
Aug 21, 2014 3:52 AM
Corrections · 2
Thank you very much for the link. It is a good idea to attach a sound recording (`・ω・)b (I just packed up my mic and MIDI interface when tidying bedroom a few days before...)
August 21, 2014
You write very well in English. Perhaps you can attach a sound recording at some stage, so that everyone can hear how you pronounce your name. I have not attached a sound recording here but there are some notes on this site about it and also I will be able to find out and post notes if you want to go down that path. I also think Cantonese is a separate language. This link on italki would support that http://www.italki.com/article/208/top-3-common-mandarin-mistakes#.U_WOQGPFlDs
August 21, 2014
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