Archive for the ‘Pronunciation’ Category
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
True Story from Yesterday
(names changed to save my face)
Me: So, are you and Jenny...you know...an "item" now?
Tommy: Oh yeah. You didn't know that?
Me: I just heard from Edgar. How long has that been going on?
Tommy: Hmm...I guess since about May.
The moral of the story (of my life) is: I'm always ...
Posted in Tones | 6 Comments »
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
First of all, let's just hear what nǎlǐ 哪里 is supposed to sound like when said by a native speaker (excerpt from Chinese 24/7 audio files):
(hopefully Firefox users won't have trouble with these)
qù nǎlǐ 去哪里? = Where are you going?
[audio:qu-nali.mp3]
Now by itself: nǎlǐ 哪里
[audio:nali.mp3]
It's clearly a 3-3 combo, just like ...
Posted in Tones | 32 Comments »
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Similar to my astonishment at the previously-discussed Chinese proclivity for stating the obvious, I've often been struck by how much of what I say in Chinese gets repeated right back at me. At first I was a little annoyed, and then I realized "Hey, I can use that!"
I'm convinced ...
Posted in Tones | 13 Comments »
Friday, August 1st, 2008
Chinese words are made up of so few possible syllables that it's almost hard NOT to rhyme. For example, Wang Lihong has a song called "Can you feel my world" that has the following rhyme scheme:
A
A
A
A
A
etc.
Just to clarify, that means that every single line in the whole song rhymes ...
Posted in Sounds | 10 Comments »
Sunday, May 18th, 2008
A few weeks ago in my English classes, I was doing lightning safety (it was stormy here, ok?). I ended up using the following joke in each class.
One of the tips from the students would inevitably be: "Always wear shoes if you're outside." I would follow that up ...
Posted in Tones | 7 Comments »
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