Taichi or taiji or taichichuan or taijiquan?
On these web pages, I will be using the most modern spelling, known as pinyin, for these Chinese words. Other publications might use different spelling and there are historical reasons for that variety.
In Mandarin Chinese, every character is a syllable, and the characters used to identify this martial art (and taiji is considered a martial art) are 太极拳. Depending on the system used to transcribe Chinese characters with the Roman alphabet, you would write that as either
The Wade-Giles system was the most accepted transcription method for almost one hundred years. A key element of this presentation is the apostrophe, which is unfortunately often ignored. The apostrophe indicates that the consonant preceeding it is pronounced with a puff of air that linguists call an aspirated stop.
Using the Wade-Giles transcription system:
or
tàijíquán in the pinyin systemIn 1982, the pinyin system (literally meaning “spelled sound”) was adopted as the international standard for transcribing Mandarin Chinese with Roman letters. This allowed sounds to be represented by the more accepted consonant (using standard phonics), and tones to be shown using accents over the vowels.
Note: For simplicity, I have omitted the tone marks in most of the pinyin used on these web pages.
This change from one transcription system to another is the source of the confusion about the pronunciation and spelling of many Chinese words. For example:
So, taichichuan or taijiquan? Depending on the transcription system, and assuming that the correct apostrophes and accents are included, both are correct. No matter which spelling you prefer, the pronunciation is the same.
Let's look at each character individually.
| Character | 太 | 极 | 拳 |
| Wade-Giles | t’ai | chi | ch’uan |
| Pinyin | tài | jí | quán |
Let's have a close look at the sound for that second character. When my friends in Beijing were told I was studying “tai-chee”, they did not know what that meant. The correct pronounciation is “tai-jee”.
So, now we have come upon yet another common misunderstanding caused by the non-phonetic Wade-Giles transcription. Many people believe that the chi in tai chi is the word for “energy”, as in ch’i kung. As shown in the table below, the character used for ch’i or q́ and its pronunciation is different than the second syllable used in taiji.
| Character | 气 | 功 |
| Wade-Giles | ch’i | kung |
| Pinyin | q́ | gōng |
Because the pinyin system adheres more logically to the phonetic principle where letters are used to represent speech sounds, it is now the preferred transcription system.
If we stick to the pinyin spelling, we still have the problem with the occasional appearance of the third character or syllable. Individually, the meaning of the characters is as follows:
| Character | 太 | 极 | 拳 |
| Pinyin | tài | jí | quán |
| Meaning | extreme or greatest | central pole (often translated as "ultimate") | fist or form of boxing |
For the most part, taiji and taijiquan mean the same thing; one word is simply a short form of the other. However, many modern practioners drop the “quan” because they do not like the association with a fighting form or martial art, and would prefer to emphasize the health and exercise aspect of the practice.