Comments on: Parrot People Help My Tones

By: 粤初 (老外）

粤初 (老外） — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:37:49 +0000

This is definitely true, what you say about Chinese people repeating back what you say. I’ve always noticed it, especially with certain Chinese people.. I think it is for politeness and for clarification, as has been said..

I can’t remember where but I remember reading an article about “Chinese liking to state the obvious”. Hehe. I think this is one of those examples…

I have become used to some of these things, so I didn’t actually notice it until I read this! A very interesting observation~

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:41:26 +0000

Hi,

I also made that experience, but never thought about to use it for myself to study, good idea.

But actually my first thought about that was that there is also a lot of misunderstanding between native speakers due to the tones, so that they need to confirm they understand right.

We should ask some natives to bring more light into that

Tom

By: Sarra

Sarra — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:11:51 +0000

Just wanted to add a little note about Chinese speakers repeating what has been said to them. They do it to check understanding. It shows the other person you are listening attentively to what they are saying. I find that many English speakers (myself included) only repeat something when we don’t understand it as means of asking for clarification. This can lead to trouble when speaking Chinese.

By: read everyday

read everyday — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:33:30 +0000

When a subordinate just repeats what his/her boss just says, sometimes it means the subordinate is trying to get his /her boss’ huan xin欢心，trying to agree with whatever the boss says. In China, we always say”shao shuo hua , duo zuo shi 少说话，多做事”. Can you understand this? I know American always express what they think to their boss(maybe not always, but more than chinese.) In China, most people don’t talk to their bosses freely, just in case you might say something wrong, then you might lost your job or give the bad impression to your boss. So it would be much save just repeat what your boss says sometimes.

When two strangers talk, when they repeat , maybe they are trying to show repect , maybe just because they don’t really know what else to say, they don’t really much about each other , not sure what to ask. They just can’t feel free to express theirself. Or maybe they just simply lost interest to talk to the each other.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:10:06 +0000

Before completely reading your post I went to my 大学 to copy some essential grammar books, bringing 老婆 along so that I got the best price was crucial, when speaking to the man (saying sth I had no clue of) I noticed she had repeated what he said exactly, after asking her why she did that she said she was haggling and that they often do it during haggling, what I took from her full explanation was, they do this during haggling as a way of making a question, repeating it lets the other know she wants to go lower, or in other words is asking if its alright to go lower. Although I have no idea what his cue would be to say she couldn’t.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:41:34 +0000

By the way, ‘打 ( to hit, beat) 球（the ball)’ could not be used for ‘whatever’ balls. For foot ball, one should say ‘踢（kick) 球 (the ball）‘. And this kind of ‘lazy language’ is only used when both speakers know what kind of ball they are talking about.

By: Randy Alexander

Randy Alexander — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:38:49 +0000

When I was fresh off the boat, I had a similar experience with taxi drivers asking what country I was from. But it wasn’t a tone problem so much as a listening problem compounded by similar tones.

Taxi driver: (Nǐ shì něiguóde?) 你是哪国的？
What country are you from?

Me: (Duì.) 对。
Right.

[Taxi driver looks puzzled, maybe thinking I'm a little slow on the uptake.]

Taxi driver: (Nǐ shì měiguórén ma?) 你是美国人吗？
Are you American?

Me: (Shì, wǒ shì měiguórén.) 是，我是美国人。
Yes, I’m American.

[I look a little puzzled, maybe thinking the taxi driver is a little slow on the uptake.]

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:33:43 +0000

As I said in other posts, a language for its native speakers is not simply a tool for exchanging information. Albert is wrong when he said the Chinese are simply repeating each other’s sentence. I can understand how difficult it is for him to tell the differences between the same words said by the two different speakers.

Let me translate one of Albert’s examples.

A: nǐ shì nǎge xì de? 你是哪个系的?
What department do you work in?

B: kuàijì xì 会计系.
Accounting.

A: o, kuàijì xì. wǒ shì wàiyǔ xì de 哦, 会计系. 我是外语系的.
Accounting is interesting. Unluckily, I’m in the Foreign Language Department.

B: wàiyǔ xì. nǐ jīngcháng lái zhèlǐ dǎ qiú ma? 外语系. 你经常来这里打球吗?
Come on,
foreign Language Department is not that bad. Do you often come here to play ball? (pingpong, basketball, whatever)

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:37:16 +0000

To Jonathan
The ’3+3′ -> ’2+3′ rule applies only if the two characters form a single phrase.
Albert’s mistake has nothing to do with that rule, though. The correct pronunciation should be 蒜（suan 4）苗（miao 2), no matter what it is followed by.

By: Philip

Philip — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:16:13 +0000

I have a theory, why Chinese people also do it when they talk to each other. So many words in Chinese sound so similar, that it has become a habit to always check if they understood each other correctly. It’s probably something they do unconsciously. What do you think?