It is likely you are confused by the hen and egg problem of why your friend said Beijing when reading Peking. He simply skipped and ignored what was written bc he knew it was the equivalent of his own languages main capital city so he just used mandarin word for it.
It is supposed to be pronounced with soft B. Hard P is from Peking which is cantonese. The rest of the world adopted Peking first before Beijing bc cantonese was the language of most chinese emigrants decades and century ago
![[I ate] peking duck bao](https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/pictrs/image/e177b44a-b9fa-41f4-8a53-89c48f33a3ef.jpeg){kind=link}
That is an interesting rabbit hole. I’m reading the correct pronunciation is more like “pay-cheeng” (even if not the official spelling)?
Should the “B” be as hard as we normally pronounce it in America?
My Chinese friends always pronounced it like an English ‘B’. It might be regional.
It is likely you are confused by the hen and egg problem of why your friend said Beijing when reading Peking. He simply skipped and ignored what was written bc he knew it was the equivalent of his own languages main capital city so he just used mandarin word for it.
I’m talking about in conversation.
It is supposed to be pronounced with soft B. Hard P is from Peking which is cantonese. The rest of the world adopted Peking first before Beijing bc cantonese was the language of most chinese emigrants decades and century ago