posted by murrayjames on August 21, 2013 | 8 comments
Are jiǎosè and juésè interchangeable? Is there a standard pronunciation for a sentence like this?
1910年以后，爵士乐在美国兴起，萨克斯管在其中扮演了不可或缺的角色。
@murrayjames,The correct pronunciation is juésè. However, a lot of people (especially from the South) would say jiǎosè in their daily conversations.--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
Don't think it's just southerners -- I've heard plenty of younger Northerners read 角色 as jiǎosè, and I suspect that it'll probably end up becoming the most common pronunciation eventually, as has happened with other 破音字. I wonder if Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin preserve the reading, as they do with some other words.
murrayjames on August 24, 2013 | reply
@Echo, Brendan, thanks!Does the same pattern hold for words like 主角 (i.e., zhu3jue2 is standard, but zhu3jiao3 is also acceptable and common in some places)?
Actually, most Chinese people don't know which one is the right one. Both have many followers. However, according to dictionaries, juésè is the right pronunciation.Though I know juésè is the right one, I still stick to jiǎosè which I have been saying for more than twenty years. Habit prevails.In Taiwan, most people say jiǎosè.