Comments on: Beware of False Friends

By: Paulo

Paulo — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:15:39 +0000

Hi Albert,

Just found out your blog and have been going trough some of the posts. These are very interesting questions you’re raising here. As for this one, and excuse me for being late for the discussion, I’ve had that problem with “travel” over and over. 旅游 does sound like “traveling for fun” and I always refrain to use it in the “going from one place to another” way that we do in western languages.

Is there another word for travel that just 表示 the going from one place to the other 意思？

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:40:20 +0000

Thank god i have finished teaching English and teaching altogether.

So long and thnks for all the fish , dont use that in an english lesson.

By: gia

gia — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:49:59 +0000

Dear reader,

I was laughing when alot of this started to make sense to me after reading some of the experiences that you have written here above,
especialy about the one for going on “vacation”;
I myself, have had no decent “vacation” in China for almost 2 years–much to do with the speed of life here).. In short, I noticed that in linguistic practice there is definately a noticable difference between the language where in one is forced into the thought of constantly comparing things, just as a given due to the structure of the language, ( no wonder why to many new comers, there is always a source of chaos and confusion.) Hence, unless I become this source of logic myself, by staying x amount of time in China, there is really no way to gain a close to fluent understanding.However I have stayed in China and gained a spoken fluency in the language, but there are some things that still baffle me.

More so, I am writing to know more why, and just asking if ANYONE knows about this phenomenon of Chinese comparison, and the seeming obsession to compare relatively anything ( people, places— even non tangible materials, that are said to be perhaps in the room—- even thoughts being treated as objects like xiang qi lai– ex..) — I “comparing obsession” is unavoidable. IT is event the first and most important lesson from day one in the grammar sentence structure.

My two year stay in China has made me more and more likely to immediately think through this logic that is meaningless in my country,(I speak fluent Chinese at a level 6 HSK), and I only find that I cant stop automaticaly seperating and comaparing things.

Previously, I was taught the concept, everything should be equal– I don’t see anything but ladders to endlessly climb with sometimes a logic that makes no sense to the prevelant day.

Sorry for my long comment, but these experiences above have sincerely made a relevance to what is going on in my mind!

Thankyou for writing.

If you have a reply (anyone), I would be eager to hear a response through email in regards to this chinese logic of seperation and comparison.

Gia

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:40:38 +0000

“Thin skinned,” as in lianpi bao means easily offended. “Thick skinned” or lianpi hou can have a good or bad meaning: the good meaning is that the person is self-assured so not easily offended and not too timid to do things that might embarrass someone (e.g., speak in english with foreigner), the bad meaning is that they’re so self-assured that they don’t listen to people’s opinions even when they should.

By: Jane Deng

Jane Deng — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:24:27 +0000

A great post! Cross-cultural misunderstandings I think are sometimes more likely to occur when the two speakers are both highly conversant in the language being spoken, since then you are less likely to focus on the body language and external cues and more likely just to focus on the words.

By: Jim Mahler

Jim Mahler — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:19:22 +0000

Excellent post, Albert. “False friend idioms” and “divergent concept” words create difficulties when learning any foreign language, but the problems are especially acute for Westerners learning Chinese (as well as for Chinese learning “exotic languages” like English). Even such apparently straight-forward words as æ°´ and æ¡�å�do not mean quite the same thing as their so-called English equivalents, “water” and “table”. The solution to these problems is one you’ve often noted: Don’t try to learn Chinese exclusively from textbooks and dictionaries; grab every chance to go out and talk to people.

By: John

John — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:08:57 +0000

As for “thick-skinned”, a Chinese person once told me I had to have “thick cheeks.” It was the same sort of situation in which I would use “thick-skinned,” and when I clarified it, she said that’s what she was trying to say, so maybe it’s not so different…

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 12:31:41 +0000

I have lost count of the times I have corrected my Chinese friends – cousins are not brothers!

Some of them say: “My cousin-brother and I…”

By: Nicki

Nicki — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:43:04 +0000

Ha, no, I had heard the chicken/prostitute thing before, I think, but it was definitely not what I was thinking of! No, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked my Chinese friends: “Is a chicken a bird?” and gotten a few seconds of brow-furrowed silence, then a “No, a chicken is not a bird.” I can’t remember if I talked about it here before or not, but apparently there is a different category for most Chinese people between birds and poultry. Chickens, geese, ducks, etc. are poultry, NOT birds.

Another one that I think every English teacher in China runs across is that the students will tell you they have multiple brothers/sisters, but they are counting their cousins as well…

By: Albert

Albert — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:24:58 +0000

Now Nicki,

You’re not trying to bait us into stumbling into an awkward chat about “ji1″ 鸡 (chicken) and “ji4″ 妓 (prostitute), are you? Oh I’ve blindly walked into that one before. The Chinese were shocked to hear that there’s a band called “Super Chicks” because of the bad connotations that has in Chinese. Since the character for “chicken” has the character for bird (鸟) in it, I can’t imagine too many Chinese people claiming it’s not a bird. Doesn’t “niao3″ (bird) have some bad connotations as well? What are you trying to do to us Nicki? But hey, I just got an idea for a new post! (and it’s NOT about profanity)

And since none of us really knows what’s going on with “thick/thin skin,” I’ll check into that soon.