Olympic fun-facts: Beijing is pronounced with a plain old "j"
 

OK Olympic fans, in case you didn't know...

Here's a little tutorial on the correct pronunciation of China's capital city Beijing.



Although it sounds exotic to folks here in Waddy Peytona (and to CNN announcers) to pronounce the "j" like the French "j" (in the song Frère Jacques), they are wrong. It's just a plain old English sounding "j".

My nephew lives in Beijing and is married to a Chinese woman. During a visit some years ago, I remember she commented on how English speaking people almost insist on pronouncing it with the French "j"... sometimes to point of correcting her (not necessarily Americans).

When I want to sound French I just call it Peking...

yes!

My J isn't stressed and I guess it would sound more like the French J but it's more due to my heavy Kentucky accent I have to consciously change my accent to say the J normally . Nobody should complain about my pronunciation when they can't even pronounce Louisville correctly!

ching ching beijing bling bling

thse guys annoyed the crap out of me..its like i dropped a coin on the floor and they make the sound for it 'bay-jing'.

I always pronounced it correctly, but I watch a lot of subtitled Wuxia movies, so I think I picked up correct pronounciation from them.

I did like the quick jingoism jab at we Americans, though. :) It was just subtle enough to make me laugh.

This is why the good folks at HP included a stop button on my laptop.

Don't forget their other Olympic fun facts!

That's a great video, very well done. Don't know why some people found it annoying though. It's not that difficult.

That could have been really really funny, but instead, after having watched half of one of the other ones, I feel like someone took a cheesegrater to my brain.

jorgelito - it's all in the intangibles - the way they look, speak, act. It's just slightly off and that's even worse than it bing obviously off. You can't point to any one thing and say, "There, that's why they suck," but if you're attuned to it the video is pervaded with a weak aura of suckage, and that is maddening.