Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

Taiwan

UK /ˌtaɪ̯ˈwɑːn/ · US /ˌtaɪ̯ˈwɑn/ proper noun

Forms Tai-wan T'ai-wan Tywan Taywan Tay-wan Tayuan Tayoan Tayouan

  1. proper noun A partly-recognized country in East Asia consisting of a main island and 167 smaller islands. Official name: Republic of China. Capital: Taipei.
  2. proper noun An island between the Taiwan Strait and Philippine Sea in East Asia.
  3. proper noun (historical) A former prefecture of Fujian province in China (Qing Empire) (1683–1885).
  4. proper noun (historical) A former province of China (Qing Empire) (1885–1895).
  5. proper noun (historical) A former dependency of Japan (1895–1945).
  6. proper noun (law) A province of the Republic of China (Taiwan) (from 1945).
  7. proper noun (law) The territory currently under the de facto jurisdiction of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
  8. proper noun (disputed) A claimed province of the People's Republic of China (from 1949).

Synonyms

Republic of China ROC Chinese Taipei Formosa mul:TW mul:TWN Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu Taiwan Area Free Area Taiwan region Tainan China Nationalist China

Etymology

The specific form "Taiwan" in English emerged from the Wade–Giles Tʻai²-wan¹ romanization of Mandarin 臺灣／台湾 (Táiwān), and also perhaps the romaji of Japanese 臺灣(たいわん) (taiwan), both of which are ultimately from Literary Chinese 臺灣, from Hokkien 大員 (Tāi-oân), 大圓, 臺員, 大灣, 臺灣, and other forms, a placename initially referring to a sandbank peninsula that later silted up; now wholly part of the island in the area of modern-day Anping District, Tainan, and eventually became the name of the entire island. The original placename itself was originally likely the transcription of a loanword from Siraya.
Cognate with Dutch Tayouan / Taioan / Taiwan / etc., and other early variant forms of Hokkien 臺窩灣 /台窝湾 (Tâi-o-oân), etc.
The name is sometimes folk-etymologized to have originally meant "terraced bay" (臺灣 /台湾), "great bay" (大灣 /大湾), or similar parsings from interpretations of the Chinese characters alone.

From French Taïwan, from Mandarin Chinese.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “Taiwan”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details