How do you pronounce Taobao?

[apanda0622]

 
So I have a project on ebay, and I have to mention Taobao, but I'm not sure how to pronounce it?  Any help?

[ristvak]

I've always said it Tow-Bow. Like tuh, ow! (i bumped my knee), bow (to important people). No clue if that's correct of course

[Chi]

Tow-Bow
Like "ow" in Cow.

[Ringlets]

I moved your thread  for you
 I say it like Chi does as well, though I'm not 100% sure if thats quite right. I heard somewhere that Tao is pronounced Dow.. but I'm not sure if thats right either. I'd prolly just stick to Tow-Bow unless someone else can enlighten us a bit more .

[saply]

I know Tsingtao beer is pronounced "ching dow", so you may be right Ringlets!

[kittybethy]

I wondered that too!

[Chi]

I googled it and got that same answer I posted. I just assumed it was right because then it makes Taobao Now a rhyming type of company name.   Don't really know for sure, but I know we have users from China so maybe they can verify.

[sd_dreamcrystal]

Wow I've been pronouncing it wrong all along

[Sarah-Bee]

I used to say tayo-bayo But then hubby said it was probablu tow-bow so I've used that since and it does make sense with the name of the agent taobaonow and rhyming

[partypony566]

I used to say tayo-bayo But then hubby said it was probablu tow-bow so I've used that since and it does make sense with the name of the agent taobaonow and rhyming

Me too!

[Matcha]

Well, the chinese letters for it are "淘宝" (táo bǎo) which would be tau bau or something like that. It rhymes with "ow".
But I'm not really sure, since I'm pronouncing it in chinese lol

[BigBrotherPony]

Lol! I have been saying Tayo Bayo the whole time too. Then I had a meeting with a Chinese guy the other day and it came up. He didn't have a clue what I was talking about! Then he was like 'Oh Tow bow! ' like 'how now brown cow!' ...embarrassing!

[sweetstuff]

Bao - is pronounced like "b-ow"  - and Tao is like "st-ow". Of course that is how my hubby who is Chinese and speaks Mandarin said it should sound. The mainland china sounds slightly different though.

[rtattles]

Yup tow-bow with the "ow" as in c"ow".
Reading it as dao is something completely American when non-speakers have problems pronouncing the words correctly.  Chinese may have different accents, but we pronounce our words pretty much the same way. Dao and Tao mean very different things and refer to very different Chinese characters.
Taobao means (at least the way I direct translate it) mischievious baby, but in a cute and endearing way. Bao can also mean precious or refer to a treasure, so there's a bit of  a word play going on I guess.

[saply]

Yup tow-bow with the "ow" as in c"ow".
Reading it as dao is something completely American when non-speakers have problems pronouncing the words correctly.  Chinese may have different accents, but we pronounce our words pretty much the same way. Dao and Tao mean very different things and refer to very different Chinese characters.
Taobao means (at least the way I direct translate it) mischievious baby, but in a cute and endearing way. Bao can also mean precious or refer to a treasure, so there's a bit of  a word play going on I guess.

Is that why, when Google translates it, it keeps asking me to "Search for baby"?