Wade-Giles romanization (like "Chunghwa") has been the standard in Taiwan as it dates as far back as the Guomindang's rule over China (and even possibly farther back, as the romanization system was established in the 19th century) and transferred when the government exiled itself.
Hanyu Pinyin, the more internationally known system, was created by native speakers for the use of the CPC in the 1950s to distinguish itself from Wade-Giles, which was created by British linguists and used very English-centric transcription choices.
International relationships with China bloomed mainly after Hanyu Pinyin became the norm, so most people outside Mandarin-speaking regions are familiar with it as opposed to Wade-Giles.
In 2009, the Taiwanese government officially made the switch to Hanyu Pinyin to "harmonize" with what non-Mandarin speakers know best, but most established Taiwanese Mandarin place/company/item/personal names remain in Wade-Giles, like the phone company you mentioned.
And the vowel in 中 is indeed not an /o/. Pinyin isn't always indicative of how English speakers used to English orthography should pronounce the word, because it's not based on English.
Hanyu Pinyin was a two-pronged replacement program: replacing zhuyin domestically and Wade-Giles internationally in one fell swoop. We were close to having as <ü>, but that was narrowly voted out within the small group working on the system (due to the need of certain Mandarin dialects to have \[v\~ʋ\]).
Vowels in pinyin can only be analyzed with respect to the entire sound (initial + vowel(s) + optional final) since it's not the same as an alphabetic transcription where the same letter or pair of letters always has the same sound associated with it. Rather, Chinese has a few hundred canonical allowable syllables and the pinyin is a shorthand for indicating which of those syllables it is (and those syllables can be realized differently depending on region and speaker).
It seems to be a pretty big misconception (which gets spread by blogs and other resources easily discovered online) that if you see an "i" then it's always pronounced a certain way, or an "a", etc. But qi and chi do not rhyme, nor do yan, and yang, and jin and jing usually are very different coming from a native speaker. Usually learners start to realize something is up when they encounter lu/lv/liu...
Long answer:
Across languages, vowels are "divided" differently across the "vowel space," which is sort of like a two-dimensional map of your mouth. Your tongue, when creating a vowel, can be "forward" or "backward" (in English, eeee and aaaa are forward, and ooooh is back). And your jaw, when creating a vowel, can be "high" or "low" (so eeeee is high, and aaaaa is low). That's why doctors tell you to say "awww" -- it lowers your tongue and jaw.
However, the languages differ in when one vowel "becomes" another vowel (psychologically) when going up/down or front/back. This means the English letters "o" and "u" capture English vowel sounds, but not foreign language vowels as well. It's a rough chop. That's why Chinese 中 can be written in English either as "zhong" or "chung" because the Chinese vowel is sort of close to that area in the "vowel space," but there's not an exact English letter that captures it.
Short answer:
The closest vowel to English is the short "ooh" in words like *foot, could, should, look.* This vowel is "higher" than English awww (cop, mop, flop) but even a step "higher" than the English uhhhh? (dud, rut, puck). The problem with English spelling is that this vowel doesn't even have its own letter -- it's distinct in English from the other two vowels, and yet they're all spelled with combinations of o AND u. That's one reason why there are a lot of different ways to write Chinese sounds with English letters, and why they're generally imperfect approximations
Double checking, so the Chinese o/u is somewhere between the hard/high English O and soft/low U?
Is there also a cultural background where a native speaker would have more O or more U sound? E.g mainland chinese vs taiwanese, young vs old, men vs women?
The issue is that English letter can represent multiple sounds even within one accent.
It’s like the OO in COOL, or the O in “more” (obviously without a following R sound). It’s not at all like the O in “so” or the U in “true”.
The closest match for my accent is the “OO” in “book” but if you’re from the US or the south of England, that’s going to be a very bad approximation.
It’s hard to know which vowel sounds you’re referring to just based on the letters. Working from a General American accent, I think the best way to get to the vowel in zhōng is to start with the vowel in *goose*, keep your lips rounded, make sure your tongue is all the way in the back of your mouth, and lower your jaw a little bit.
You can try saying 松 (sōng), [which you can hear pronounced here](https://forvo.com/search/%E6%9D%BE/zh/). Starting with the *goose* vowel, it should sound like “soo-ng.” Again, make sure your tongue is all the way in the back of your mouth. Lower your jaw a bit, but make sure to keep your lips rounded. If you keep lowering your jaw, it will eventually sound like the English word *song* (except rounded.) You will have hit the right vowel sound way before this.
I'm not sure what you mean. The *goose* vowel is \[u\], though a typically a little more fronted than the cardinal \[u\]. Lowering the jaw moves closer to \[o\]. I prefer this explanation for the zhōng vowel rather than getting someone to try to produce \[ʊ\], one because, as you say, English doesn't generally have \[ʊ\], and two because the typical \[ʊ\] is rather fronted, but the zhōng vowel is fully back.
Edit: Are you referring to the \[ɤ\] vowel in 饿 è? If so, that's exactly where the mouth position should be for the \ʊ\ or \o\ in zhōng, just with the lips unrounded instead of rounded.
Sure, based on the dialect and the linguist it could be described as \ʉ\ instead of \u\\. I’ll edit my instructions to emphasize more that the zhōng vowel should be rounded and back.
The sound of the vowel in ranges from \[u\] to \[ʊ\] to \[o\] (and it roughly evolved this way in both Mandarin and Cantonese, the latter employing the spelling instead).
What's important is only that you pronounce it as a short rounded vowel that is generally "close" and "back" (top-right region of the IPA vowel diagram).
The "o" in song (the English word) is a short vowel /ɒ/ that is more open.
"o" in 中 is more closed than /o/, but not at /u/ yet. It's /ʊ/.
"u" in 五 is /u/.
You can take a look [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Five_vowel_analysis_(pinyin-based)) as well as the IPA vowels [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart#Vowels).
I think you would like to use closed brackets [ʊ] to represent the phonetic realisation, instead of slashes /ʊ/ which represent phonemes.
According to your Wikipedia link there are two possible analyses. Using five-vowel analysis, the phoneme /u/ is realised as [u] when alone and [ʊ] before /ŋ/.
Ok, I didn't know that distinction. Thanks for pointing out.
It's just that I want to make it clear that I'm using IPA, which (for most language learning context I've encoutered) would be quoted with //.
For OP, take a look at the first link. Inside you will see two different ways of analysing Mandarin phonology.
The first way, five-vowel analysis, gives you your Hanyu Pinyin and most romanisations (turns out Hanyu Pinyin is the only exception that uses "ong" instead of "ung". The reason for this is to reduce ambiguity in typing/writing Hanyu Pinyin.)
The second way, two-vowel analysis, gives you your Bopomofo where you get "ung" = "weng" even though these two are not pronounced the same.
In english or other language, what would be the closest word that uses the /ʊ/ sound? e.g /o/ = song, ʊ/ = ? because when I went to the IPA pronunciation link, the /ʊ/ sounds like the number 2/er or hungry/餓
What I'm writing in // is IPA, not English vowels.
The "o" in song is not /o/, it is /ɒ/.
The "u" in hungry is /ʌ/, which is not really relevant here.
二 is a special case for pinyin. It is /ar/. Whereas usually pinyin "er", e.g. 儿, would be pronounced /ər/.
/ʊ/ exists in English as a short vowel, e.g. in the word "good". /ʊ/ us more open than /u/, which exists as a long vowel in English. Compare "good" with "mood". The tricky part here is that /ʊ/ in Chinese is not necessarily a short vowel, and you need to pronounce it longer without tightening your lips.
Be cautious with throwing around IPA and English syllables as examples. Neither contemporary British nor American English speakers pronounce the complement of vowels the same way as the "canonical" IPA transcription of English. So using them tends to muddy the waters.
Small correction here (not to any of the main points, just about IPA): /r/ in IPA is a trill, and the symbol for the approximant r used in English and Chinese is an upside-down r (which I don't have a good way to type atm).
Thanks, you're right about /r/.
However digging a bit deeper, it seems that 儿化音 in Mandarin Chinese as well as the ending r in American English is called [r-colored vowel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-colored_vowel?wprov=sfla1), and is represented by a hook on the vowel, e.g. /ɚ/.
In my English accent, the vowel in “good” is a close-mid **near-back** rounded vowel, between [ɵ] and [o]. In my Chinese accent, the vowel in zhōng is a near-close **back** rounded vowel, between [u] and [o]. Unfortunately they sometimes both get lumped together under the near-mid near-back rounded vowel [ʊ].
Are you from the UK? Think a geordie or (RO) Irish bloke saying "oh no Joe", that's a decent reference for the o in zhong.
But ultimately just listen to tons of Mandarin
the reason its impossible to tell you the closest sound, is because there is not a single matching pronunciation that works for everyone.
to me I say aunt with almost the exact same sound as in zhong standard mandarin accent-- different english speakers say aunt completely differently, even in the same country. if you don't say aunt the exact same way as me that is worthless knowledge to you. also the mandarin I speak has a softer zhong, so that is also potentially less useful for you.
the other reply gave you ipa which writes down what the verbal sound is itself, and doesn't rely on any specific language or accent. this is the best way to learn, and anyone learning any language will benefit from learning these markings for pronunciation :)
you can here standard mandarin zhong here: https://youtu.be/uG9g1DIdWUQ?si=CizJ7Mb6c6zFIYYi
Wade-Giles > Gwoyeu Romatzyh > Mandarin Phonetic Symbols 2 > Tongyong Pinyin > Hanyu Pinyin
Taiwan has had quite the rollercoaster of official spellings, damn near everything but Yale and Latinxua Sin Wenz. I'm happy to stick with the good ol' Mandarin Phonetic Symbols 1.
Even names use a mixture, unless you meant personal names, which are still Wade-Giles. AFAIK place names transliteration is done at the municipal level so Taipei is pretty good at consistently using Hanyu Pinyin, while smaller cities are much more mixed (with wade Giles being mostly old signs). It’s actually really funny though because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the same street written three different ways in Tainan.
I'm surprised by a lot of the comparisons listed in this thread. For me "foot" or "book" don't make the same mouth shape at all. For me "own" is the closest English equivalent, except you skip touching your tongue to the back of your teeth to end on the 'n'.
Yeah agreed with you and the person you’re replying to. I was surprised by a lot of these comments as well - wonder if it’s an English regional accent thing
That's the fun of doing "the oo vowel in sloorm" analogies because there's so much variation across the English speaking countries, even region to region and generation to generation.
I mean technically we have the same problem trying to determine the "real" values of Middle Chinese syllables based on rime tables.
> I mean technically we have the same problem trying to determine the "real" values of Middle Chinese syllables based on rime tables
The problem is that you're making a conlang that never existed.
For me it sounds closest to the vowel sound in a word like “own” actually, just without the closing of the “n” sound by touching of the tongue to the roof of the mouth when we say “own”
Definitely not the way we pronounce “song”
wade-giles is an outlandishly stupid and inaccurate transcription of chinese sounds but it stuck around long enough to make it onto chinese company names
It is written w a U bc it’s using an archaic Romanization. Pinyin is more intuitive but it’s worth noticing that the sounds don’t always track to English. Still, rhymes with song.
It's pronounced like "oo" in "book" (/ʊ/ if you know IPA). It's different from /u/ like in "true."
Mainland China and Taiwan use different romanization systems. Taiwan uses [Wade-Giles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles).
the common English ong, in words like song, is more similar to ang in pinyin in characters like 上. In pinyin ong, it is kind of like the English word own, with a g sound at the end. I don't know IPA or phonology much, but this is what I gather
To pronounce ong in chinses, think of own in English. E.g, 中 will be 直+own concatenated. Actually, by dividing the consonants and vowels, you get a clearer understanding of the composition of the Chinses character pronunciation in all. This is how as a Chinese natives learn pingyin in primary school.
Taiwanese people here. Never learned how to look at mandarin from a foreign learner's perspective so can't help with the u/o problem you have.
中 tho could be 3 or 4 tone depends on context. its 3 when it means middle or in between something. 4 when hitting a target or getting selected etc.
And yeah the romanization system is a mess that literally no one knows which one to use (there are 4) if there's a extreme little chance they're ever gonna use it.
btw, in your text that state its 3 sound with the " ˋ ", that's actually 4. 3 is " ˇ ". hope this helps
Taiwan used Wade-Giles romanization for a long time. Some of these romanizations have not been replaced by PinYin. It has its own set of problems for Chinese language learners.
Put simply, "ong" is closest to pronunciation
Wade-Giles romanization (like "Chunghwa") has been the standard in Taiwan as it dates as far back as the Guomindang's rule over China (and even possibly farther back, as the romanization system was established in the 19th century) and transferred when the government exiled itself. Hanyu Pinyin, the more internationally known system, was created by native speakers for the use of the CPC in the 1950s to distinguish itself from Wade-Giles, which was created by British linguists and used very English-centric transcription choices. International relationships with China bloomed mainly after Hanyu Pinyin became the norm, so most people outside Mandarin-speaking regions are familiar with it as opposed to Wade-Giles. In 2009, the Taiwanese government officially made the switch to Hanyu Pinyin to "harmonize" with what non-Mandarin speakers know best, but most established Taiwanese Mandarin place/company/item/personal names remain in Wade-Giles, like the phone company you mentioned. And the vowel in 中 is indeed not an /o/. Pinyin isn't always indicative of how English speakers used to English orthography should pronounce the word, because it's not based on English.
Hanyu Pinyin was a two-pronged replacement program: replacing zhuyin domestically and Wade-Giles internationally in one fell swoop. We were close to having as <ü>, but that was narrowly voted out within the small group working on the system (due to the need of certain Mandarin dialects to have \[v\~ʋ\]).
Seeing “chunghwa” and “guomindang” together in one sentence is sending me 😆
嘿嘿嘿我只是引用一下( ･ิω･ิ)
Vowels in pinyin can only be analyzed with respect to the entire sound (initial + vowel(s) + optional final) since it's not the same as an alphabetic transcription where the same letter or pair of letters always has the same sound associated with it. Rather, Chinese has a few hundred canonical allowable syllables and the pinyin is a shorthand for indicating which of those syllables it is (and those syllables can be realized differently depending on region and speaker). It seems to be a pretty big misconception (which gets spread by blogs and other resources easily discovered online) that if you see an "i" then it's always pronounced a certain way, or an "a", etc. But qi and chi do not rhyme, nor do yan, and yang, and jin and jing usually are very different coming from a native speaker. Usually learners start to realize something is up when they encounter lu/lv/liu...
> nor do yan, and yang, and jin and jing Yeah, of course they don't rhyme. Their final consonants are different.
Long answer: Across languages, vowels are "divided" differently across the "vowel space," which is sort of like a two-dimensional map of your mouth. Your tongue, when creating a vowel, can be "forward" or "backward" (in English, eeee and aaaa are forward, and ooooh is back). And your jaw, when creating a vowel, can be "high" or "low" (so eeeee is high, and aaaaa is low). That's why doctors tell you to say "awww" -- it lowers your tongue and jaw. However, the languages differ in when one vowel "becomes" another vowel (psychologically) when going up/down or front/back. This means the English letters "o" and "u" capture English vowel sounds, but not foreign language vowels as well. It's a rough chop. That's why Chinese 中 can be written in English either as "zhong" or "chung" because the Chinese vowel is sort of close to that area in the "vowel space," but there's not an exact English letter that captures it. Short answer: The closest vowel to English is the short "ooh" in words like *foot, could, should, look.* This vowel is "higher" than English awww (cop, mop, flop) but even a step "higher" than the English uhhhh? (dud, rut, puck). The problem with English spelling is that this vowel doesn't even have its own letter -- it's distinct in English from the other two vowels, and yet they're all spelled with combinations of o AND u. That's one reason why there are a lot of different ways to write Chinese sounds with English letters, and why they're generally imperfect approximations
Just in case anyone’s interested, [Geoff Lindsey has a great video explaining the vowel space](https://youtu.be/FdldD0-kEcc?si=IRvlefmVB_DdPDOH).
Double checking, so the Chinese o/u is somewhere between the hard/high English O and soft/low U? Is there also a cultural background where a native speaker would have more O or more U sound? E.g mainland chinese vs taiwanese, young vs old, men vs women?
The issue is that English letter can represent multiple sounds even within one accent. It’s like the OO in COOL, or the O in “more” (obviously without a following R sound). It’s not at all like the O in “so” or the U in “true”. The closest match for my accent is the “OO” in “book” but if you’re from the US or the south of England, that’s going to be a very bad approximation.
It’s hard to know which vowel sounds you’re referring to just based on the letters. Working from a General American accent, I think the best way to get to the vowel in zhōng is to start with the vowel in *goose*, keep your lips rounded, make sure your tongue is all the way in the back of your mouth, and lower your jaw a little bit. You can try saying 松 (sōng), [which you can hear pronounced here](https://forvo.com/search/%E6%9D%BE/zh/). Starting with the *goose* vowel, it should sound like “soo-ng.” Again, make sure your tongue is all the way in the back of your mouth. Lower your jaw a bit, but make sure to keep your lips rounded. If you keep lowering your jaw, it will eventually sound like the English word *song* (except rounded.) You will have hit the right vowel sound way before this.
That gives you (funnily enough) ⟨e⟩, not the ⟨o⟩ in ⟨ong⟩. English generally doesn't have [ʊ], unless you're from Northern England.
I'm not sure what you mean. The *goose* vowel is \[u\], though a typically a little more fronted than the cardinal \[u\]. Lowering the jaw moves closer to \[o\]. I prefer this explanation for the zhōng vowel rather than getting someone to try to produce \[ʊ\], one because, as you say, English doesn't generally have \[ʊ\], and two because the typical \[ʊ\] is rather fronted, but the zhōng vowel is fully back. Edit: Are you referring to the \[ɤ\] vowel in 饿 è? If so, that's exactly where the mouth position should be for the \ʊ\ or \o\ in zhōng, just with the lips unrounded instead of rounded.
> The goose vowel is [u], though a typically a little more fronted than the cardinal [u]. It's so fronted it's [ʉ] lol
Sure, based on the dialect and the linguist it could be described as \ʉ\ instead of \u\\. I’ll edit my instructions to emphasize more that the zhōng vowel should be rounded and back.
The sound of the vowel in ranges from \[u\] to \[ʊ\] to \[o\] (and it roughly evolved this way in both Mandarin and Cantonese, the latter employing the spelling instead).
What's important is only that you pronounce it as a short rounded vowel that is generally "close" and "back" (top-right region of the IPA vowel diagram).
The "o" in song (the English word) is a short vowel /ɒ/ that is more open. "o" in 中 is more closed than /o/, but not at /u/ yet. It's /ʊ/. "u" in 五 is /u/. You can take a look [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Five_vowel_analysis_(pinyin-based)) as well as the IPA vowels [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart#Vowels).
I think you would like to use closed brackets [ʊ] to represent the phonetic realisation, instead of slashes /ʊ/ which represent phonemes. According to your Wikipedia link there are two possible analyses. Using five-vowel analysis, the phoneme /u/ is realised as [u] when alone and [ʊ] before /ŋ/.
Ok, I didn't know that distinction. Thanks for pointing out. It's just that I want to make it clear that I'm using IPA, which (for most language learning context I've encoutered) would be quoted with //.
For OP, take a look at the first link. Inside you will see two different ways of analysing Mandarin phonology. The first way, five-vowel analysis, gives you your Hanyu Pinyin and most romanisations (turns out Hanyu Pinyin is the only exception that uses "ong" instead of "ung". The reason for this is to reduce ambiguity in typing/writing Hanyu Pinyin.) The second way, two-vowel analysis, gives you your Bopomofo where you get "ung" = "weng" even though these two are not pronounced the same.
In english or other language, what would be the closest word that uses the /ʊ/ sound? e.g /o/ = song, ʊ/ = ? because when I went to the IPA pronunciation link, the /ʊ/ sounds like the number 2/er or hungry/餓
What I'm writing in // is IPA, not English vowels. The "o" in song is not /o/, it is /ɒ/. The "u" in hungry is /ʌ/, which is not really relevant here. 二 is a special case for pinyin. It is /ar/. Whereas usually pinyin "er", e.g. 儿, would be pronounced /ər/. /ʊ/ exists in English as a short vowel, e.g. in the word "good". /ʊ/ us more open than /u/, which exists as a long vowel in English. Compare "good" with "mood". The tricky part here is that /ʊ/ in Chinese is not necessarily a short vowel, and you need to pronounce it longer without tightening your lips.
Be cautious with throwing around IPA and English syllables as examples. Neither contemporary British nor American English speakers pronounce the complement of vowels the same way as the "canonical" IPA transcription of English. So using them tends to muddy the waters.
That's what OP requested, though.
Small correction here (not to any of the main points, just about IPA): /r/ in IPA is a trill, and the symbol for the approximant r used in English and Chinese is an upside-down r (which I don't have a good way to type atm).
Thanks, you're right about /r/. However digging a bit deeper, it seems that 儿化音 in Mandarin Chinese as well as the ending r in American English is called [r-colored vowel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-colored_vowel?wprov=sfla1), and is represented by a hook on the vowel, e.g. /ɚ/.
Interesting, thanks!
In my English accent, the vowel in “good” is a close-mid **near-back** rounded vowel, between [ɵ] and [o]. In my Chinese accent, the vowel in zhōng is a near-close **back** rounded vowel, between [u] and [o]. Unfortunately they sometimes both get lumped together under the near-mid near-back rounded vowel [ʊ].
Are you from the UK? Think a geordie or (RO) Irish bloke saying "oh no Joe", that's a decent reference for the o in zhong. But ultimately just listen to tons of Mandarin
hahaha that is a genius way of explaining it! now I'm going to be thinking in a Geordie accent the rest of the day...
the reason its impossible to tell you the closest sound, is because there is not a single matching pronunciation that works for everyone. to me I say aunt with almost the exact same sound as in zhong standard mandarin accent-- different english speakers say aunt completely differently, even in the same country. if you don't say aunt the exact same way as me that is worthless knowledge to you. also the mandarin I speak has a softer zhong, so that is also potentially less useful for you. the other reply gave you ipa which writes down what the verbal sound is itself, and doesn't rely on any specific language or accent. this is the best way to learn, and anyone learning any language will benefit from learning these markings for pronunciation :) you can here standard mandarin zhong here: https://youtu.be/uG9g1DIdWUQ?si=CizJ7Mb6c6zFIYYi
Taiwan uses the Wade Giles romanization For example 新竹is spelled as Hsinchu
Wade-Giles > Gwoyeu Romatzyh > Mandarin Phonetic Symbols 2 > Tongyong Pinyin > Hanyu Pinyin Taiwan has had quite the rollercoaster of official spellings, damn near everything but Yale and Latinxua Sin Wenz. I'm happy to stick with the good ol' Mandarin Phonetic Symbols 1.
I thought I read that the RoC now uses Pinyin except for names, where they continue to use Wade-Giles.
Yeah it’s a mixture/mess Even some names are now in Pinyin
Even names use a mixture, unless you meant personal names, which are still Wade-Giles. AFAIK place names transliteration is done at the municipal level so Taipei is pretty good at consistently using Hanyu Pinyin, while smaller cities are much more mixed (with wade Giles being mostly old signs). It’s actually really funny though because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the same street written three different ways in Tainan.
Definitely does not rhyme with "song"
Although in a lot of British accents I'd say it's a pretty close approximation
Good point, i was thinking American
“ong” as in “don’t” in English.
I'm surprised by a lot of the comparisons listed in this thread. For me "foot" or "book" don't make the same mouth shape at all. For me "own" is the closest English equivalent, except you skip touching your tongue to the back of your teeth to end on the 'n'.
Yeah agreed with you and the person you’re replying to. I was surprised by a lot of these comments as well - wonder if it’s an English regional accent thing
That's the fun of doing "the oo vowel in sloorm" analogies because there's so much variation across the English speaking countries, even region to region and generation to generation. I mean technically we have the same problem trying to determine the "real" values of Middle Chinese syllables based on rime tables.
> I mean technically we have the same problem trying to determine the "real" values of Middle Chinese syllables based on rime tables The problem is that you're making a conlang that never existed.
For me it sounds closest to the vowel sound in a word like “own” actually, just without the closing of the “n” sound by touching of the tongue to the roof of the mouth when we say “own” Definitely not the way we pronounce “song”
wade-giles is an outlandishly stupid and inaccurate transcription of chinese sounds but it stuck around long enough to make it onto chinese company names
It is written w a U bc it’s using an archaic Romanization. Pinyin is more intuitive but it’s worth noticing that the sounds don’t always track to English. Still, rhymes with song.
It's pronounced like "oo" in "book" (/ʊ/ if you know IPA). It's different from /u/ like in "true." Mainland China and Taiwan use different romanization systems. Taiwan uses [Wade-Giles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade%E2%80%93Giles).
Always heard it like oon
imagine the way u eat dramatically，om om om，that sound u make，is basically ong.
the common English ong, in words like song, is more similar to ang in pinyin in characters like 上. In pinyin ong, it is kind of like the English word own, with a g sound at the end. I don't know IPA or phonology much, but this is what I gather
To pronounce ong in chinses, think of own in English. E.g, 中 will be 直+own concatenated. Actually, by dividing the consonants and vowels, you get a clearer understanding of the composition of the Chinses character pronunciation in all. This is how as a Chinese natives learn pingyin in primary school.
It ranges from ʊŋ ~ o̞ŋ ~ oŋ (IPA notation) [Source](https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E3%84%A5)
I can at least assure you that it's not the "ong" from Shyamalan's avatar movie 😂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CadMS5voZrk
Taiwanese people here. Never learned how to look at mandarin from a foreign learner's perspective so can't help with the u/o problem you have. 中 tho could be 3 or 4 tone depends on context. its 3 when it means middle or in between something. 4 when hitting a target or getting selected etc. And yeah the romanization system is a mess that literally no one knows which one to use (there are 4) if there's a extreme little chance they're ever gonna use it. btw, in your text that state its 3 sound with the " ˋ ", that's actually 4. 3 is " ˇ ". hope this helps
Taiwan used Wade-Giles romanization for a long time. Some of these romanizations have not been replaced by PinYin. It has its own set of problems for Chinese language learners. Put simply, "ong" is closest to pronunciation