Editing Taoism (section)

===Standard Chinese and English pronunciation===
{{Further|Standard Chinese phonology}}
The Standard Chinese pronunciation of 道 is {{IPA|/tau̯˥˨/}}.
* In Standard Chinese, the initial consonant, {{IPA|/t/}}, is ''not'' [[Voice (phonetics)|voiced]] like the {{IPA|/d/}} in the English word "do".
* In Standard Chinese, the initial consonant, {{IPA|/t/}}, is ''not'' [[Aspirated consonant|aspirated]] like the {{IPA|/tʰ/}} in the English word "to".
Neither an English pronunciation like {{IPA|/daʊ/}} (an English pronunciation of "Dao") nor an English pronunciation like {{IPA|/tʰaʊ/}} (an English pronunciation of "Tao") is the same as the Standard Chinese pronunciation of 道.

These differences in the initial consonants used in English and Standard Chinese may contribute to there being different methods of romanizing Chinese, which consequently may confuse English speakers when encountering both "Tao" and "Dao" spellings for the same Chinese term.

One authority calls the pronunciation with a {{angbr|t}} as in "tie" (with a {{IPA|/tʰ/}}) to be a "mispronunciation" originally caused by the "clumsy Wade–Giles system", which misled most readers.<ref>{{harvp|Carr|1990|pp=58, 60, 62, 68}}</ref> Standard Chinese phonology does not have the same sound inventory as English phonology; the Wade–Giles romanization system provides spellings in the Latin alphabet, but they are not meant to indicate an exact English pronunciation in the same way as though they were English words.