Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Learning Mandarin in Cantonese Land III: Grammar

2011 July 29 – 10:17 am

Categories: Cantonese | 9 Comments »

This is part 3 in a series (part 1 here, part 2 here) about learning Mandarin while living in Guangzhou (Canton).

One challenge to be aware of is grammar, specifically word order.

In Mandarin, the most common way to say “You take a shower first”* is:

nǐ xiān xǐzǎo 你先洗澡 [you first shower]

However, in Cantonese, the word order changes to:

 nǐ xǐzǎo xiān 你洗澡先 [you shower first]

*For some reason, this is the example sentence that gets used most often when talking with my students. I suppose since the order of who’s taking a shower is an important issue for students sharing a dorm room.

This also applies to the ubiquitous “taking leave” sentence when you’re leaving someone behind:

Mandarin: wǒ xiān zǒu 我先走 [I first go]

Cantonese: wǒ zǒu xiān 我走先 [I go first]

The good news is…

Down here in Cantonese Land, people probably won’t care or look at you strangely or think nasty thoughts about your Chinese regardless of which word order you use. The word order is much more flexible since Cantonese speakers are speaking Mandarin as a second (at least) language, and the word order of Cantonese is perfectly acceptable to them in Mandarin.

The bad news is…

An informant who is a native Cantonese speaker might not be as clear on the “rules” of Mandarin grammar. I’ve had native Cantonese speakers tell me that “there are no rules for Chinese word order.” I tried to point out that I thought the following would be unusual for a native Mandarin speaker to say:

UNUSUAL: wǒ fàng bāo zài zhuōzi shàng le. 我放包在桌子上了.

COMMON: wǒ bǎ bāo fàng zài zhuōzi shàng le. 我把包放在桌子上了.

= I put the bag on the table

They said, “Both are ok!”

Poll the audience

So my questions for all y’alls outside of Guangzhou are:

1. Do you ever hear “xiān” 先 put at the end of a sentence like in my “shower” and “I go first” examples?
2. What do you (and your informants) think of the “Both are ok!” statement and the “there are no word order rules in Chinese” statement? Would native speakers in your area be likely to say “wǒ fàng bāo zài zhuōzi shàng le” 我放包在桌子上了?

I’m most interested to hear any feedback in the comments section of this page.

Learning Mandarin in Cantonese Land II: Vowel Shifts

2011 June 6 – 9:15 am

Categories: Cantonese | 2 Comments »

In addition to the consonant changes listed in the table in my first post, there are some interesting vowel changes that occasionally occur when Cantonese speakers speak Mandarin.

Example 1: “i”

First of all, a little review about now “i” is pronounced in Mandarin (sounds from here):

• “chi”
• “ci”
• “qi”

As mentioned, the Cantonese (and other Southerners) will frequently mix up the first two (“chi” and “ci”). The only difference will be the initial consonant because those two vowels are roughly the same. But on rare occasions I’ve also heard them actually change the vowel (and the initial consonant).

For example, a fruit seller asked me “吃饭了吗?” which should have sounded like:

• chī fàn le ma?

OR

• cī fàn le ma?

But actually became:

• qī fàn le ma? (like “七饭了吗”)

If you don’t know that’s possible (and even after you DO), it makes it very hard to guess the meaning of what you’re hearing. It’s basically like a fāngyán 方言.

Example 2: “-an” vs. “-ang”

Remember how the “-n” and “-ng” get mixed up in Cantonese land? It can be a big problem for listening comprehension.

The “a” vowel stays roughly the same in words like:

• chuán 船 = boat
• chuáng 床 = bed

These I can usually handle. Similar to the confusion that might arise if someone says in English “Do you like to sin at KTV?”, you can probably guess that she just meant “sing.”

When Cantonese speakers make the same “mistake” in Mandarin, you can usually guess from the context which one they meant (but they still giggle even if a Chinese speaker means to ask “When did you two get on the boat?” and actually says “When did you two get into bed?”).

However, for words beginning with “y / q / j / x”, the “a” vowel is actually different depending on whether the ending is “-n” or “-ng”:

• yán 盐 = salt
• yáng 羊 = sheet / goat

I was talking to one student and was totally stumped when she asked me if I had a:

• bīnxiān

Her classmate (somehow miraculously knew what she meant and) hit her on the arm and said:

• bīngxiāng 冰箱 = fridge

If she had just been asking whether I wanted ice in my drink, and she’d said “bīn” instead of “bīng”, I could have figured it out because the words sound the same except for the “-n” or “-ng”. But the kicker was really “xiān” because the vowels are different from “xiāng.”

• xiān 先 = first
• xiāng 箱 = box

Ironically, the same student, only a few minutes later made the opposite mistake and asked me what kind of “xiàng” I like in my dumplings (it should be “xiàn” 馅). I still wasn’t ready for it, but there was only one word it could have been.

The amazing thing about the “xian” / “xiang” experience was that they were so clearly phonemic packages in her mind. “If it’s got an ‘-ng’ at the end it must have such-and-such vowel.” Until I heard that, I thought that syllables in the “y / q / j / x” family would be safe from “-n / -ng” changes because I assumed the memory of the correct vowel sound would prevent any confusion. Or, I thought the vowel would stay unchanged even if the speaker failed to produce the “-n / -ng” correctly. How wrong I was!

Summary

Although the changes to consonants (listed here) that occur down here are tough to deal wtih, awareness of the options, practice, and some guessing can get me to where I can still understand what’s being said. On the other hand, the meanings of words that have undergone these vowel changes are nearly impossible to guess except in extremely high frequency words (like “have you eaten”).

New Internet Slang: Gěilì 给力

2011 May 29 – 10:03 pm

Categories: Slang | 10 Comments »

Through my new two new wēibó-s 微博 (pzAlbert and pzEnglish, NOTE: you have to be a member of sina or weibo to view them) I’ve been exposed to some interesting new language. The most chīxiāng 吃香 of which at the moment seems to be:

• Gěilì 给力 [give strength]

I’ve asked for usage examples and it seems to mean:

1. lìhai 厉害 (awesome)
2. jiāyóu 加油 (in the cheering sense)
3. hǎo 好

For example:

1. nǐ tài gěilì a! 你太给力了! = You’re so awesome!
2. nǐ xiǎng zuò ma? gěilì gěilì! 你想作吗? 给力给力! = You want to do that? Go for it!
3. 140 zì tài bù gěilì le. 140字太不给力了. = (Weibo.com only allowing 140 characters per post is so bad.

It’s also morphed into some bizarre Chinglish words:

• “geilivable” or “gelivable” (the latter gets more than twice as many google results even though the former is “correct” pinyin)
• “ungeilivable” or “ungelivable“

Apparently, “geilivable” means “incredible” or “excellent.” But “ungeilivable” is bad. According to an article at Beijing Today earlier this month, “geilivable” has even made it into the news.

I’ve also heard “gěilì” and “geilivable” spoken by my students which means it’s not only confined to online communication.

See also this Xinhua article about new internet slang. The only other internet slang from that article that I’ve heard or seen is “niubility” (from niúbī 牛屄), but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m ungeilivably out of touch with the internet slang world.

Anyone else heard this or any other new slang we should know about?

Parents Hurt Rather Than Love Their Children

2011 May 9 – 7:46 am

Categories: Word Hog | 14 Comments »

In one of my English classes last week, the students wanted to talk about mǔqīn jié 母亲节, so I let them.

After a while, the discussion turned (I turned it) to whether the students had ever said “I love you” to their parents or heard their parents say “I love you” to them. The overwhelming majority said “no” to both. They said that they knew their parents love them because of all the sacrifices they’ve made, but they’ve never heard them say “I love you.”

I said, “But in songs it’s always ‘wǒ ài nǐ 我爱你 this’ and ‘wǒ ài nǐ 我爱你 that’, right?”

They agreed it’s common in songs, and lovers might say that occasionally to each other, but it’s rarely said between parents and children.

Then one student said, “My parents will say ‘wǒ hěn téng nǐ 我很疼你’, but never ‘wǒ hěn ài nǐ 我很爱你’.”

Ok, just to put closure on my cheap, shock-value title, “téng 疼” really does mean “to love” in addition to being the same character for “hurt” (although, I’m pretty sure it can’t be used transitively for “to hurt” the way I did in the title). What was interesting to me was: when I asked them in English “Do your parents say ‘I love you’”, they (most of them) shook their heads. But later when the student said her parents say ‘wǒ hěn téng nǐ 我很疼你’, they (most of them) agreed with that.

So, questions for the reader(s):

1. What does that ‘wǒ hěn téng nǐ 我很疼你’ REALLY mean? Is it really just another way of saying “I love you”? If not, what’s the difference?
2. (For our Chinese reader): How prevalent is this phenomenon? Is it true that parents prefer to use the word “téng 疼” over “ài 爱”?

If you’ve got answers or theories, please enlighten us.

The Quest for Anti-inflammatory

2011 April 30 – 9:35 am

Categories: Medicine | 17 Comments »

I’ve long since seen the need for better medical definitions in our Chinese/English dictionaries. But my recent quest for a stronger anti-inflammatory drug has made me think there’s a problem that might not be the dictionaries’ fault.

The standard over-the-counter anti-inflammatory and painkiller out here is Fēnbìdé 芬必得 (picture here). The English on the back of the box says “Ibuprofen Sustained Release Capsules” and according to Wikipedia, Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory.

Ok, so I’ve got Ibuprofen. But I want something stronger for a little case of tendinitis. So I go to the pharmacy and ask for what most dictionaries agree is the Chinese for anti-inflammatory drug:

xiāoyán yào 消炎药 [disappear inflammation medicine]

The guy nods knowingly and gives me a box of Cefradine, an antibiotic!

Pharmacists out here aren’t always the most knowledgeable. Maybe the guy just made a mistake. So I go to the local (village) hospital and talk to a doctor.

Here’s the English translation of our conversation (with some select Chinese words to show what was said):

Me: I’m looking for a stronger anti-inflammatory (xiāoyán yào 消炎药).

Doc: (picks up my box of Cefradine) You’ve got it. All we can give you is this.

Me: But that fights bacteria (xìjūn 细菌), right?

Doc: Right.

Me: I don’t need that. I’m looking for something to fight inflammation (yánzhèng 炎症).

Doc: We don’t distinguish between those kinds of medicine.

Me: What?! For example, this box of Fēnbìdé 芬必得 that I’ve brought. What kind of medicine is this?

Doc: That’s just a painkiller (zhǐtòng 止痛).

Me: Ok, you know if I play tennis for a long time, the tendons in my elbow will get inflammed?

Doc: It’s called tennis elbow (wǎngqiú zhǒu 网球肘).

Me: Yes exactly! What kind of medicine would you give me for that?

Doc: (picks up box of Cefradine again) This.

Now, I’m no doctor. But I’m pretty sure antibiotics aren’t going to help with tennis elbow.

I went to another pharmacy and faked a back injury to see what medicine they would give me. I kept asking for the strongest stuff they’ve got (stronger than Fēnbìdé 芬必得, please) and finally ended up with Meloxicam. Now, that actually is an anti-inflammatory.

So why this blog post? I’ve noticed that, perhaps just as we don’t have a concept of shànghuǒ 上火 (which amazes the Chinese), the Chinese don’t really have a concept of what antibiotic and anti-inflammatory drugs really are. The recent news about cracking down of overuse of antibiotics in China usually cites corruption as the main contributing factor. Only one article I found (in my 2-second Google search) talked about the need for better education to correct the problem, and that was public education. But remember it was the doctor himself who said “We (doctors? Chinese?) don’t distinguish between those kinds of medicine.”

From time to time, I’ve asked students or friends what kind of medicine they took for various things (ear infection, etc.). While I’ve heard names of antibiotics like amoxicillin (ā mò xī lín 阿莫西林) thrown around, they’re always called “xiāoyán yào” 消炎药 by the Chinese. I’ve never heard anyone say “kàng shēng sù” 抗生素 or “kàng jūn sù” 抗菌素 or any of the dictionary entries for “antibiotic”. MDBG is the only dictionary I’ve seen that lists “antibiotic” as the definition of “xiāoyán yào” 消炎药 (which, remember, literally breaks down to “disappear inflammation medicine”).

So, please leave a comment if you have any theories as to:

1. What words I really should use when referring to “antibiotic” or “anti-inflammatory”?
2. Why doctors and Chinese don’t differentiate between the two (in my opinion) very different kinds of medicine?