“Nǐ hǎo 你好,” I said.

He stopped his walk and said, in all sincerity that most people don’t say “nǐ hǎo” 你好 as a greeting. It just sounds too fake (tài jiǎ de 太假的).

I was very startled and asked him to please tell me what I should say. He then went into how good friends will say, “Chīfàn le ma?” 吃饭了吗? or one of the many variations on the question and there are different responses depending on whether or not you’ve just eaten.

This might have been a good little prank, but he was perfectly serious. He was even explaining it to one of his Chinese colleagues who was standing there too (as if he didn’t know!). The colleague, in all earnestness, was agreeing and adding little tid bits of his own to the advice.

I listened very politely and then it ended and they left.

I was surprised to hear all this because:

A. I already know all about “Chī le ma?” 吃了吗? and all the other ”eat-n-greet” options around here. I was shocked that these teachers thought I could understand all the other vocabulary they were using yet, somehow, managed to miss one of the most basic greetings.

B. I thought “Nǐ hǎo” 你好 was perfectly friendly. I had no idea it sounded so “fake.” I think he might have meant it was too formal and not casual enough for good friends.

C. I don’t consider him a good friend. He’s an older teacher who I’ve only spoken with a few times, and usually the conversations have left me (like this one) with an unpleasant wèidào 味道 in my kǒu 口.

So the real questions for any of those loyal few who still tune in to this blog are:

1. Is there any truth in what this man says?

2. Should I now be afraid to say “Nǐ hǎo” 你好 at the risk of sounding fake?

I don’t know why, I  just prefer not to ask people if they’ve eaten as a greeting. But I’d be willing to try if the overwhelming number of comments (i.e. more than zero) tell me I should.

• Stating the Obvious
• Is China a good place to learn Chinese?
• Language Learning is Messy II: Talk a Lot
• Addressing strangers
• Top 10 measure words to know

Apparently, ChineseTeachers.com is doing a Christmas special offering unlimited Chinese lessons (voice chats with Chinese native speakers) until the end of this year (2009). But here’s the kicker:

After I wrote a review of ChineseTeachers.com, they hired me to do some consulting for them. So, as a thank you to you (the inexplicably loyal readers of this blog), they just informed me that anyone who mentions the name of this blog will receive a free $1 in your account, which is the minimum required to take advantage of the Christmas special. So that means that anyone who reads this little post can actually have totally free Chinese lessons (or as I prefer to think of it: informant Q&A time) for the next week.

If you decide you’d like to give it a try, just remember to type “Laowai Chinese” as the answer to “Where did you hear about us?” when you create your account. That’s apparently the magic mìmǎ 密码.

Enjoy shouting holiday cheer to everyone you meet (four 4th tones in a row, sheesh!).

• Free Gifts
• Book in Hand
• ChineseTeachers.com – My Review
• Receive Updates about my Book
• Beijing Sounds – My Review

I was shopping for Shèngdàn lǐwù 圣诞礼物 in a big shopping mall in Guangzhou. I found a little silk scarf I was considering and the shopkeeper came over to convince me it was exactly what I wanted. I explained (just for the chance to speak Chinese) that I was looking for Christmas presents and especially one for my mom. She and her shopkeeper friend were thrilled to learn that and started pointing at other things in the shop. One picked up a decorative fan and said (ready for the imaginary listening practice?):

Zhè ge sòng nǐ hěn hǎo.

I was shocked. I transcribed it in my head to be these characters:

这个送你很好 = I’ll give you this for free, that’s good.

I thought, “Really?! You’d just give this to me. Just because I’m shopping for Christmas presents? It looks kind of expensive though. I mean, it’s a really fancy fan.”

So I clarified:

Zhège sòng gěi wǒ ma?
这个送给我吗？
You’re giving this to me for free?

I’ve never heard so many “bù-s” in such a short time span, and coming from such smiling faces as one said:

Bú shì “sòng nǐ,” shì “sòng nǐ.”

and she made some hanzi characters on her hand.

Have you figured out the problem yet?

Thankfully, I’ve spent a lot of time down here in the South teaching Chinese students English majors, many of whom have the same pronunciation problem. I sorted it all out by saying:

O! Nǐ de yìsi shì “sòng lǐ”–sòng lǐwù de lǐ–bú shì “sòng nǐ.”
哦你的意思是”送礼”–送礼物的礼–不是”送你.”
Oh! You mean “to give as a gift”–the “li” of gift–not “to give you for free.”

The delight in the room could have lit all the Christmas trees in Tiānhé 天河!

The old “n/l” switcheroo is just one of the many widespread pronunciation problems we have to deal with in the South, and seems to be especially prevalent in Guangdong. The sounds are allophones in many fāngyán 方言 (including, apparently Cantonese) and so this sort of thing happens all the time. Many times you can figure out what it was supposed to be (“Nǐ qù lǎlǐ?”). This was just one of those times when both variations were possible and only one could be true.

• Free Gift from ChineseTeachers.com
• Stump the Laowai: wúnài 无奈
• How Old Are You on Mars?
• Reductions: Missing Sounds
• Cognate Coincidences

Example 1: Tennis Player

Imagine I see a girl walking down the street with a tennis racket in her hand. I want to dāshàn 搭讪 (not to be confused with you-know-who). In English, I’d say something like:

“Nice racket you’ve got there. So, are you a tennis player?”

How would we translate that second sentence into Chinese? Well, looking at “reporter” (jìzhě 记者) and “scholar” (xuézhě 学者) we see that you just add “-zhě” 者 to the end of a verb and you’ve suddenly got a noun meaning “someone who VERBs.” Unfortunately, even though the grammar is technically correct for a literal translation, the word dǎzhě 打者 doesn’t exist, so this is impossible:

Wrong:
Nǐ shì wǎngqiú dǎzhě ma? 你是网球打者吗? = Are you a tennis player? [you are tennis play-er {p}]

So what should we say? The other agent markers are out because you can’t add them to “dǎ” 打 either:

• -jiā 家 = -er (like in “huàjiā” 画家 = painter)
• -yuán 员 = -er (like in “yǎnyuán” 演员 = actor / performer)

These words do not exist is Chinese:

Wrong:
Nǐ shì wǎngqiú dǎjiā ma? 你是网球打家吗?
Nǐ shì wǎngqiú dǎyuán ma? 你是网球打员吗?

You could add yuán 员 to “tennis,” but that sounds too professional:

Nǐ shì wǎngqiúyuán ma? 你是网球员吗? = Are you a (professional) tennis player?

That’s not really my question. I just want to know if she plays tennis.

So I suggested to my informants the trusty “shì…de” 是…的 construction:

Nǐ shì dǎ wǎngqiú de ma? 你是打网球的吗? = Are you a tennis player? [you are play tennis {p} {p}]

They said it’s ok, but sounds strange. It turns out what most Chinese people would say is simply:

Nǐ huì dǎ wǎngqiú ma? 你会打网球吗? = Do you know how to play tennis?

OR better yet:

Nǐ jīngcháng dǎ wǎngqiú ma? 你经常打网球吗? = Do you often play tennis?

I know, I know, I know. We don’t want to talk about how often she plays, but that’s the way Chinese people would ask our original question, “Are you a tennis player?” or “Do you play tennis?” Apparently, adding the “jīngcháng” 经常 in there is better (or at least more dìdao 地道) than just saying: “Nǐ dǎ wǎngqiú ma?” 你打网球吗?

Lesson 1 = If you can leave out the agent marker and just ask a simple “Do you often VERB?” question, that’s probably best.

Example 2: Drummer

But sometimes that’s really not what I want to know. Imagine I’m at a rock show and I meet a band of 4 guys before their set. I want to know who is the drummer in the band. Now, I could just ask each of them:

Nǐ huì dǎ gǔ ma? 你会打鼓吗? = Do you know how to play the drums?

But there’s always that chance, especially because everyone knows how to hit stuff, that they’ll ALL say, “Yes.” They might even hit them pretty often, which renders the “jīngcháng” 经常 construction useless. I really just want to ask about the drummer! Enter: “hand.”

Nǐ shì gǔshǒu ma? 你是鼓手吗? = Are you the drummer? [you are drum-hand {p}]

“Hand” works as the agent marker for most (all?) instrumentalists (jítāshǒu 吉他手 = guitarist) and in some other situations as well:

• xuǎnshǒu 选手 = competitor / contestant [choose hand]
• shuǐshǒu 水手 = sailor [water hand]
• qiāngshǒu 枪手 = gunner [gun hand]
• duìshǒu 对手 = opponent [opposite hand]

Summary

I’m always looking for some sort of guīlǜ 规律 to guide me when thinking about these things and here’s what I’ve got so far (although it’s not even close to perfect):

1. If it’s the formal name of an actual job (reporter, scholar, actor, tennis player, etc.) look for some sort of formal word that may use any of the following: “-zhě” 者, “-jiā” 家, or “-yuán” 员 to create the job title.
2. If it’s less formal or more of a temporary or amateur position (drummer in a band, competitor) look to add “-shǒu” 手 after the main noun involved (sailor and gunner are exceptions I guess, as is ).
3. If you just want to talk about a hobby, just ask “Do you often VERB?”

As an example, if I want to create a formal book club dedicated to reading the collected works of Lǔ Xùn 鲁迅, I’d say:

Lǔ Xùn de dúzhě 鲁迅的读者 = readers of Lu Xun

(One student told me that authors often thank the “dúzhě” 读者 at the end of a book.)

But after that tennis racket girl shuts me down and I want to change tactics and ask if she’s an avid reader, I should say:

Nà, nǐ jīngcháng kàn shū ma? 那,你经常看书吗? = So, do you often read books?

She’ll probably think I’m a player or a loser and just walk away.

• Doubt: Harder Than You’d Suspect
• What’s that “zi” 子 thing?
• Stump the Chinese: Velcro and Boombox
• HSK Vocabulary Levels Added to MDBG
• Cognate Coincidences

xuétóu 噱头

If you click on the hanzi above you’ll be taken to MDBG where you see that it’s more like “antics” or “shenanigans” than stunts that a stuntman would do. That’s fine. The definition seemed appropriate enough.

The problem was, no one in the room of about eight Chinese university students knew how to pronounce the first character: 噱. Even one student who got a 98 percent (giving him the highest grade possible) on the Mandarin Test (pǔtōnghuà cèshì 普通话测试, discussed briefly here) didn’t know how to pronounce it.

Finally, someone looked it up in a cell phone or electronic dictionary that had pinyin and announced it was “xue2.” I guess it’s such an obscure character that it doesn’t really belong on David Moser’s list of common yet hard Hanzi. But still, good thing pinyin exists. Otherwise, they would have had méi bànfǎ 没办法 to find out how to say it.

According to MDBG, when it’s by itself, 噱 should be pronounced “jue2,” but Nciku lists it as “xue2″ in isolation as well as in compounds. Can anyone confirm which is correct?

• MDBG Online Dictionary – Tutorial
• MDBG Online Dictionary – My review
• MDBG Dictionary Plugin for Wordpress
• Nciku.com – My Review
• Hanzification of Olympic Names

Inspirational Story

It was my friend Adrian who first said, “Have you ever noticed every Chinese pop song has the word ‘kuàilè’ 快乐 in it?” He’s pretty much right. Of course there are about three songs getting air time on our campus radio that don’t mention ‘kuàilè’ 快乐, but if you start listening for it, you’ll see that word is all over the place.

I started thinking about other clichéd (that’s a 2nd tone) words in Chinese love songs. I decided to list the most common ones I’ve heard in Chinese pop music and write them all into one song. Here’s the original list (in order of appearance in the song):

1. tiānkōng 天空 (sky)
2. xīngxing 星星 (star)
3. měilì 美丽 (beautiful)
4. yuèliang 月亮 (moon)
5. ài 爱 (love)
6. tiānshǐ 天使 (angel)
7. chìbǎng 翅膀 (wing)
8. wēnróu 温柔 (tender)
9. shǒu qiān shǒu 手牵手 (holding hands)
10. kuàilè 快乐 (happy)
11. xīntiào 心跳 (heart beat)
12. mèng 梦 (dream)
13. tiánmì 甜蜜 (sweet)
14. kàojìn 靠近 (get close)
15. húdié 蝴蝶 (butterfly)
16. yǎnshén 眼神 (eyes / emotion seen through the eyes)
17. xīnlǐ 心理 (heart / heart and mind)
18. shēnbiān 身边 (by your side)
19. xìngfú 幸福 (happy)

It then took almost no time at all to put those words into one long parade of clichés. But by then I was having so much fun I just had to put in a few more little phrases (like “bái mǎ wángzǐ” 白马王子), write a bridge, and finish the song.

Composition Notes

The music also employs a few musical clichés from Chinese pop.

• The melody is exclusively pentatonic (you can play the melody using only the black keys on the piano). Traditional Chinese music has a long history of using pentatonic and even now many Chinese pop melodies stay within the pentatonic mode for most or all of the song (more on this later).
• I modulate up two key changes just like Tónghuà 童话 by Guāng Liáng 光良.

One common convention in Chinese pop music that I haven’t followed is the practice of not writing a second verse. Many pop songs just go back and repeat part or all of verse 1 after the first chorus. Since I still had more clichés to shoehorn in, I couldn’t afford not to keep writing.

Two more little cultural shout-outs in the song are:

1. The line “yuèliang dài wǒ shuō ‘ài nǐ’” 月亮代我说爱你 to reference the most popular love song of all time in China: Yuèliang dàibiǎo wǒ de xīn 月亮代表我的心 (The Moon Represents my Heart).
2. The mention of húdié 蝴蝶 (butterfly) to reference the ever famous Butterfly Lovers (Liáng Shānbó 梁山伯 and Zhù Yīngtái 祝英台) already immortalized in various songs.

I hope you enjoy Kuàilè 快乐 and wish you all happy every day!

• Download the MP3
• Printer-Friendly Lyrics
• Main Song Page

More of my music…

• A Simple Song
• Pirate This: Music of the Laowai
• Invisible Wings
• New Song: Àimèi de Guānxi 暧昧的关系
• We Are Ready: Beijing Olympics Song

Listen Now

[See original post to listen to audio]

Download the MP3

Transcript

1. qǐng qǔ xiànjīn 请取现金.

Please take (your) cash.

2. jiāoyì wánchéng hòu, qǐng qǔ huí kǎ 交易完成后,请取回卡.

After (you’ve) completed your transaction, please take back (your) card.

3. qǐng qǔ huí kǎ 请取回卡.

Please take back (your) card.

The ATM says other stuff too, but this is all I personally encounter when I withdraw pinkies. If anyone has any recordings of other (non-China Construction Bank) ATMs that are different, I’m sure it would be interesting to compare. Yeah right! Who records ATMs?

• Stuff you might be hearing – Restaurants
• Colored Tones on MDBG
• Terms of Endearment
• Stating the Obvious
• Language Learning is Messy III: Learn What You Need

Here’s the editor’s purpose statement:

Frequently, readers ask us for help when new Chinese phrases or terms pop up in the press or daily conversations. In an attempt to improve the rendering of such terms in English, we have decided to introduce the weekly “Buzzwords” column starting from today (2005-10-07).

This column has three purposes: first, to provide a tentative English translation of new Chinese terms and phrases that have recently appeared in the press as a reference for our readers; second, to tell our readers what are the latest buzzwords in the local press; and third, to invite readers to help us generate better translations.

A lot of the terms seem to be internet and high tech vocabulary.

If you’re interested, they also have information on that same page about contests they hold for the best English translation of these new words.

I’ve added the RSS feed for Buzzword to the iGoogle page (in the middle column). If you’d like it to appear on your Google home page, with all the other (currently 41) feeds to pick and choose from, please get the latest version of the page by clicking this button (it’s free):

Add “Learn Chinese” to iGoogle

• “Learn Chinese” iGoogle Page 2.0
• “Learn Chinese” iGoogle Page Grand Unveiling
• How to Find Chinese Medical Terms
• Chinese Family Tree
• Field Notes

Inspirational Story

The idea for this song came from one week of class when the topic for my English major students was romance and relationships. Invariably, in every class, someone would ask me how to say àimèi 暧昧 in English. I told them just to say “unclear” because it’s easier to remember than “ambiguous.”

Apparently, an àimèi 暧昧 relationship is one where they haven’t had the DTR (Defining The Relationship) talk but it’s obvious to everyone that there’s some huàxué 化学 there. Ringing in my ears at the end of the week was one brief exchange I heard between two of the girl students. One said, “I really don’t like àimèi 暧昧,” to which the second replied with a coy smile, “I like àimèi 暧昧.” Those opposing ideas were the inspiration for the song.

Much of the rest of the vocabulary came from the same week of classes when students would ask me how to say various things in English and I would learn the Chinese in the process.

Composition Notes

Musically, I was trying to compose a sort of “happy” pop rock inspired mostly by Mayday 五月天.

Lyrically, I wanted to try the “A” rhyme scheme (as discussed here) just to see how hard that really is to do. As a result, the verses each have the following rhyme scheme:

A
A
A
A
A
A
A
A

Verdict: not really that hard, but a little bit tedious. Besides, the chorus was the first part of the song I wrote, and that didn’t follow the same pattern (AABC, DDEC for the chorus).

I hope you enjoy!

• Download the MP3
• Printer-Friendly Lyrics
• Main Song Page

More of my music…

• New Song: Kuàilè 快乐
• Why Is It So Easy to Rhyme in Mandarin?
• Watching the Sea
• Pirate This: Music of the Laowai
• Tomb Sweeping Festival

A few people have contacted me saying they wanted to write a review of Chinese 24/7 on Amazon.com but couldn’t because they didn’t have an Amazon account. I told the publisher about that problem and they told me the best alternative to writing a review on Amazon is writing one at Barnes & Nobel.

Here’s a button to write a review of your own:

Advantages of Amazon

• I think the reviews on Amazon.com are more widely read and therefore probably more prestigious.
  

Advantages of Barnes & Noble

• It’s simple to do (don’t think you’ve got to use all those little categories of stars, just an overall rating is enough).
• You can create an account and write a review without purchasing anything from their website. With Amazon you have to purchase at least one product from them before you can write a review.
• Not all Barnes & Noble stores (North America) carry Chinese 24/7 yet, and the more positive customer reviews they see on their own sight the more likely they are to carry the book on their shelves.

So all that to say: if you’ve been meaning to write a review but haven’t because of Amazon’s rules, you’ve now got a place to do it. (And if it’s really glowing we might even put it up on the special reviews compilation page.) Thanks again!

• Book in Hand
• Book Update: Proofing done. Book at Printer.
• Book Printed and for Sale on Amazon Again
• Will Amazon Sell Chinese 24/7?
• Book Update: Editing done. Proofing almost done.