Dan-cat wrote:Out of interest Chengdu how do you pronounce Lyu Haotian?
The Lyu is hard to describe. First off, ignore the 'y'. An English speaking layman can pronounce Lyu and Lu (Lu Ning) the same (think English name Lou), which is fine really, although they sound quite different in Chinese.
For those who want to make more of an effort, you need to understand there are two very different 'u' sounds in Chinese, and they are both different from any English sound. The 'yu' in Lyu Haotian is a softer sound, while Lu Ning's 'u' is deeper. For Lyu's yu, think of a camp speaker seeing something disgusting and saying 'ooh'. For Lu's u, think of a caveman communicating in his deep voice 'ou'.
Haotian is two syllables, Hao and Tian. Hao is easy, it sounds close enough to 'How' in English.
Tian is Yan with a 't' at the front. Think 'tyen'.
I won't bother talking about tones because the raw syllables are difficult enough to get right for a non-Chinese speaker.
So, Lou How Tyen
Or a bit closer, Looh How Tyen.
You can understand why a lot of Chinese people give themselves an English name to make it easier in English!