Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Learning Mandarin in Cantonese Land

2011 April 6 – 8:19 am

Categories: Cantonese | 8 Comments »

“Tiān bú pà, dì bú pà, jiù pà Guǎngdōng rén shuō pǔtōnghuà”

“天不怕, 地不怕, 就怕广东人说普通话,“

“I’m not afraid of the heavens or the earth, the only thing I’m afraid of is a person from Guangdong speaking Mandarin.”

That’s often the first thing a Chinese person from outside Guangdong Province will tell me when I tell them I’ve learned Mandarin in Guangzhou (in the boonies outside the suburbs of Guangzhou, actually). They’re amazed that I don’t have a Cantonese accent or even a southern accent (more on this in a moment) despite my having learned all my Chinese in the South (Nanchang, Jiangxi Province for 1 year, then Kunming, Yunnan Province for 1 year, and the rest of the time in Guangzhou).

A quick (though advanced!) Google search shows that Sichuanese and others get substituted into that little epigraph. But it seems Guangdongers get picked on most for some reason.

John Pasden once told me he’d be interested in hearing what it’s like learning Mandarin in Cantonese Land. So here’s a basic outline for you, John (although it’s been so long you’ve probably forgotten that we even talked about this), and I hope others find it informative as well.

Listening (Mandarin)

I’ve lived in Guangzhou for a over three years now, and certainly the biggest challenge to learning Mandarin here is listening. Most people around me can speak Mandarin but usually prefer to speak Cantonese (called báihuà 白话 here rather than the more specific yuèyǔ 粤语).

Since Cantonese is most people’s first language (or Kèjiāhuà 客家话 or something else), their Mandarin accent is heavily influenced by their own fāngyán 方言.

Here are some typical pronunciation differences between “standard” Mandarin and the “southern” accents that I’ve been exposed to (including those in Jiangxi, and Yunnan):

Amazingly, it was just the other day that I bought something I’d never bought before (and therefore didn’t know how much it would be) and heard “40″ as “14″. I gave her 15 yuan and she said “Eh hem…it’s 40.” When the tones go by really fast, and you’re not really paying attention, you can still get snookered by those switcharoo consonants.

Listening / Eavesdropping (Cantonese)

While eavesdropping is difficult everywhere in China (for a variety of reasons), it’s basically impossible here because everyone is speaking Cantonese. How different is Cantonese from Mandarin? I’m glad you asked.

Some things are similar enough to guess:

1. nǐ hǎo 你好 (Mandarin) = hello

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

2. nei5 hou2 你好 (Cantonese*) = hello

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

NOTE: I’ve also heard “nei5 hou2″ pronounced “lei5 hou2″ (see above table).

But a lot of the time Cantonese is just a totally different language:

1. chī fàn le ma? 吃饭了吗？(Mandarin) = Have you eaten?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

2. sik6 jo2 faan6 mei6 a3? 食左饭未啊? (Cantonese*) = Have you eaten?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

NOTE: Those same characters would be pronounced like this in Mandarin: “shí zuǒ fàn wèi a”

There are also some situations (though very rare) where the shopkeeper or someone doesn’t (or won’t) speak Mandarin. Then I’m screwed. She can understand me, but I have no idea what she’s saying back.

Good news: subway announcements in Guangzhou are in Mandarin and Cantonese. Most official functions (staff meetings, etc.) are in Mandarin since there are plenty of wàidì rén 外地人 who don’t speak Cantonese either.

Speaking (Accent)

As often as I get compliments on how “standard” my accent is (shockingly, when I met my new neighbor, he even complimented me after I’d only said “ni hao”!), I’m still aware of a few little uncertainties that have crept into my Mandarin.

I usually don’t have trouble remembering which words start with “s / sh” or “z / zh” etc. and I CERTAINLY don’t have any trouble with the “n / l” issue. But I still get confused with some words ending in “-n” or “-ng”. For example, “huānyíng” 欢迎 (welcome) is a word I hear all the time around here and I literally hear it pronounced as often as not with the “-n” and “-ng” wrong…oops!…I mean “not standard”.

Many times the Chinese people I’m with don’t have any idea if a word ends in an “-ng” (hòu bíyīn 后鼻音) or an “-n” (qián bíyīn 前鼻音). I even had one lady insist that “hěn hǎo” 很好 was actually spelled “hěng hǎo” in pinyin!

Speaking (Vocabulary)

In addition to the little uncertainties about pronunciation that have crept in to my Chinese, I’ve discovered there are some vocabulary choices that I make differently since I live in Cantonese Land. I’ll actually do a whole post on this soon, but they would probably be analogous to saying “vacuum” rather than “hoover” or “stroller” versus “pram”.

Reading

If you go to Hong Kong (another Cantonese speaking area) you’ll see they use fántǐ zì 繁体字 rather than the jiǎntǐ zì 简体字 in use in the Mainland. While Guangzhou uses simplified characters, there are two issues for reading Cantonese:

1. They use the characters differently / The grammar is different.

I’m not going to say much about this, but as you saw in the “have you eaten” example above, the character for “eat” was “chī 吃” in Mandarin and was replaced by “食” (which is pronounced “shí” in Mandarin) for the Cantonese. In fact, only the character for “rice / food” (饭) was the same between the two utterances.

Also, for the verb “to be,” Mandarin speakers use 是 shì. But Cantonese speakers use 系 xì, which we know as “department”!

2. They have their own special characters.

You think you’ve cracked the code? To say “I’m not” in Mandarin is 不是. So it should be 不系 in Cantonese, right? Sorry. They’ve got their own special character for “not”.

For other examples of special Cantonese characters see this MDBG search.

Conclusion / Should I Go To Beijing to Learn Good Chinese?

I always hear “go north to learn good Mandarin.” I suppose I should say yes, that’s true. If given the choice between Guangzhou University and Beijing University (or other southern / northern choices) to work or study at, I guess it would be technically “better” to go north to avoid the linguistic challenges listed in this article. I suppose you’re more likely to learn “standard” English accents in Colorado and London than you would in Arkansas and Newcastle, respectively.

But, for what I want to do with the language, I’ve done just fine. It’s not impossible to learn “standard” Mandarin in the South. Also, the North may have it’s own linguistic challenges (érhuà 儿化 and other variations on the “let’s not speak clearly” theme, some of which can be found at Beijing Sounds).

It’s more about who you learn from then where you are. Wherever you are, it’s important to find a good, “standard” Mandarin speaking informant (tips on how to do that here). It’s out “on the street” that you’ll notice the difference.

And most importantly of all, it’s how hard you try. If you really want to learn Chinese, you’ll do it no matter where you go. If you’re not that motivated, you could be stationed in the very heart of Putonghua Land (wherever that is) and still not learn it.

————-

*I’ve chosen the Yale transcription system because I hate that I don’t even know how to pronounce Jyutping.

Tomb Sweeping Day Poem

2011 April 5 – 8:18 am

Categories: Poetry | 1 Comment »

Yes, it’s time for my triennial Qīngmíng jié 清明节 post. This poem is famous, so you’ve probably already memorized it. But just in case you haven’t, here it is:

Qīng míng 清明 Tomb Sweeping Festival

by Dù Mù 杜牧 (803–852, Tang Dynasty)

清明时节雨纷纷，
路上行人欲断魂。
借问酒家何处有？
牧童遥指杏花村

qīng míng shí jié yǔ fēn fēn
lù shàng xíng rén yù duàn hún
jiè wèn jiǔ jiā hé chù yǒu
mù tóng yáo zhǐ xìng huā cūn

English Translation from Wikipedia

A drizzling rain falls like tears on the Mourning Day
The mourner’s heart is going to break on his way
Where can a wine shop be found to drown his sad hours?
A cowherd points to a cot’ mid apricot.

English Translation from eChinaExpat

Heavy raindrops fall like tears on Qing Ming,
Even the people on the street look lifeless.
Where can I find a wine shop to drink?
The shepherd boy points to Xing Hua Village.

English Translation by Wu Junta (pdf)
(I just love the 3rd line in this version)

It drizzles thick on the Pure Brightness Day
I travel with my heart lost in disway
“Is there a public house somewhere, cowboy?”
He points at Apricot Bloom Village faraway.

Does Dating a Native REALLY Help Your Chinese?

2011 March 20 – 7:29 am

Categories: Love and Dating | 24 Comments »

(The reports of this blog’s death have been greatly exaggerated. )

To quote myself (again), I once said:

“As cliché as it sounds, the two ways people usually learn Chinese the fastest are:

• Get a Chinese boyfriend/girlfriend
• Go to bars a lot”

But since I haven’t had a (very long) romantic relationship with any Chinese girls, I decided to invite an American friend of mine (using her Chinese name) to do the first ever guest post! She’s engaged to a Chinese guy and has learned quite a bit of Chinese so far. But was it because of him…?

==== Begin Guest Post ====

By Xiao Yi (小一)

So you’re in China, you’ve been studying Chinese, and now you’ve even got this great Chinese boy/girlfriend who can teach you. You’ve got it made! You’ll be fluent in no time. Right? Not necessarily.

While it seems to make sense that having a Chinese signifiant other would quickly cement your language skills, my experience tells me differently. My fiance, Mr. X, is a talented linguist and a patient teacher, and being with him has certainly boosted my motivation to learn. But there’s a long list of people I would rather study Chinese with than him. Now, I realize that every relationship is different. It’s important to note what your default language is. Mr. X’s English far outstrips my Chinese, so our default language is English. That being the case, I find it counterproductive to use him as my primary language informant for three main reasons:

1. The roles can get mixed. While I appreciate Mr. X’s occasional tips on pronunciation, I do not appreciate him correcting my grammar when I’m trying to vent my frustration about a bad day. When you spend too much time in teacher/student mode, it can be difficult to snap out of it and back into relationship mode. Good teachers consistently correct grammar mistakes. Good boyfriends do not.
2. You turn into a zhongwen bandit. Just like you hate those random students who come up to you while you’re doing your shopping, trying to steal bits of English practice, your partner could end up feeling used. Interactions need to be primarily about building the relationship, not the language acquisition.
3. The message is more important than the medium. We’re trying to build a life together here. We need real communication to happen, so we go to our default language: English. Neither of us want to waste our precious moments together waiting for me to fumble through an oversimplified Chinese sentence just because I need to practice passive voice.

This is not to say that we never speak Chinese together. On the contrary, we frequently have basic conversations and send text messages in Chinese. I’m quick to try and impress him with every bit of new ability I acquire. But I acquire it elsewhere. Your experience might be quite different, especially if your partner doesn’t speak English or your Chinese and her English are at about the same level.

==== End Guest Post ====

Any laowai-s out there with a Chinese significant other with anything to add to this discussion? Please feel free to leave a comment. If you ask Xiao Yi a question she might even reply!

What’s up with Persuade?

2011 January 1 – 9:11 am

Categories: Rants | 14 Comments »

Another post from the ranting “What’s up with…?” series that focuses on vocabulary words we can’t quite get a straight answer about.

Look in the dictionary for “persuade” and you basically end up with:

• shuōfú 说服
• quàn 劝

Now, let’s ignore (for this whole post) the fact that these words often mean “try to persuade” and talk about the following two statements that native speakers around me insist on:

1. “We don’t use shuōfú 说服. That’s more of a formal / written form.”

They claim to prefer quàn 劝 in spoken Chinese. It would be nice if the dictionaries mentioned that, but I’m actually not even convinced it’s true. I’d like to hear what other people from other parts of the country (I’m in Guangzhou) have to say on this matter (please leave comments here).

2. “And besides, 说服 is really pronounced ‘shuìfú’. So ‘shuōfú’ is a mistake.

MDBG gives “shuìfú” as the Taiwan pronunciation, but I’ve never heard anyone down here say anything BUT “shuìfú” (and my friend Tommy has never heard anything BUT “shuōfú”). Also, a student told me the other day that during high school, in preparation for the gāokǎo 高考 (which includes a pinyin section to test students’ Mandarin–I’d love to get a hold of some online materials for that by the way if anyone knows of any), they were told to give the correct pinyin for 说服 and if they put “shuōfú” it was marked wrong.

Now, I know that informants are flawed and can be prone to shooting from the hip, selling their own opinions as universal laws, and are always influenced by their own fāngyán 方言 (this is Guangzhou, after all). But it’s not only one person who’s saying these things.

Also that gaokao story had a sort of ring of truth to it. Why would the character 说 be included on a test if it was meant to be pronounced the same way it always is (“shuō”)? At the same time, none of my dictionaries give “shuìfú”. So, what are we to think? Any ideas are welcome.

Musical Gifts for the Holidays

2010 December 18 – 2:53 pm

Categories: Songs | 3 Comments »

In the spirit of the season (and also because I haven’t had time to get to any of the 70 drafts waiting for me), I’d like to give you 3 new, original songs as a little present for the holidays.

1. Yǐwéi 以为 by me

Part of the ongoing 我不是东西 collection or Chinese pop songs that I write based on vocabulary I learn (here’s the direct link for the mp3 – right click and “save as…”)

2. Christmas Every Day by me and my friend Danny

Disclaimer: English song. We wanted to write a Christmas song now since it would seem so out of place at other times (here’s the direct link for the mp3 – right click and “save as…”)

3. Bú Ràng Nǐ Líkāi 不让你离开 by Danny and Blueberry (one of our students)

I didn’t help write this song (although I do play the piano on the recording), but I like it so much I had to give it a little publicity. By the way, I tried to help with the English translation, but I must admit I was stumped by:

Which is currently translated nonsensically as:

(Otherwise) there won’t be enough time change the past collection into mature privacy

If anyone has any suggestions on a better translation for that line (or any of the other lines), please let me know and I’ll pass the word along.

Enjoy!