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Okay, I'm going to try to educate without being boring.

PEK stands for Peking. Interestingly that was always meant to be pronounced as Beijing (literally Northern Capital). The spelling comes from the Wade-Giles romanization system for Chinese. It has a weird set of rules that native English speaks have misinterpreted for decades. Peking, Nanking, Chunking, Taipei, etc have all been mispronounced. They should have been spelled with the current Pinyin system which is Beijing, Nanjing, Chingqing, and Taibei. Much easier for us native English speakers to pronounce. Tsingtao, as in the beer, is another one. It is more correctly prononced Qing Dao ( happen to be sitting in Shanghai drinking one now :)).

The X is a tough one for many as well. Should be pronounced as the s in She so Xian is pronounced She An.



Typhoonpilot
 
Okay, I'm going to try to educate without being boring.

PEK stands for Peking. Interestingly that was always meant to be pronounced as Beijing (literally Northern Capital). The spelling comes from the Wade-Giles romanization system for Chinese. It has a weird set of rules that native English speaks have misinterpreted for decades. Peking, Nanking, Chunking, Taipei, etc have all been mispronounced. They should have been spelled with the current Pinyin system which is Beijing, Nanjing, Chingqing, and Taibei. Much easier for us native English speakers to pronounce. Tsingtao, as in the beer, is another one. It is more correctly prononced Qing Dao ( happen to be sitting in Shanghai drinking one now :)).

The X is a tough one for many as well. Should be pronounced as the s in She so Xian is pronounced She An.



Typhoonpilot

Well said.
 
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