the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

The Beijing pronunciation is more like fa-jir, i think. The character definitely can be pronounced jing4 or jin4, though as people said, for Chinese southerners these two sound basically the same. Definitely not to be confused with jing1 (essences).

Southerners indeed do not differentiate between jin and jing, but in correct putonghua, the pronunciation is jin. (Northern) Chinese phonetics developed over time, and jin and jing are two different syllabyles. If you want to be phonetically correct, go with jin. If you don't care, either one's fine.

Shit. Wuyizidi beat me to it.

This issue was confusing as hell for me too because in Xi'an they use the retroflex "r" a lot as well. Not as much as Beijingers but most all -in and -ing endings end up being pronounced -ir.

It's written like Wuyizidi said but actually, two characters like "jin-er" as described above, are pronounced in a singel syllable: jinr or just jir. (sounds like "jeer")

cdobe wrote:I'm convinced that in standard Pinyin, Jin and Jing are not interchangeable.
When you want to say 'issue power' you say 'Fa1 Jin4' 发劲. Most people around here write 'Fa Jing', but I consistently spelled it the way that I think is correct. My theory was, that people thought about 'to issue energy' 'Fa1 Jing1' 发精. But 'Fa Jin' is a Taiji synonym to 'Fa1 Li4' 发力.

CD

My Shifu uses fa jin and fa li somewhat interchangeably but the general rule is that "fa li" is what almost everbody here on emptyflower (almost, not all) refer to as "fa jin" but "fa jin" as Shifu uses it, can also refer to a very subtle tiny little push or pull. Anytime you express a jin, however small and subtle, it is still "fa jin". Fa li usually just means to explode or to use heavy force.

as I understand it's usage in the arts I've studied from taiwan, we use fa jin for all of it. the subtle jin experssion, and the big explosions both.

My teacher uses english.