Heisig: my just desserts

I was reminded recently that there is a large gap between knowing individual Chinese characters, and being able to understand what the entire phrase or sentence might mean.

This is already an idea I know well, I certainly mentioned it a few times in my series on learning to read using the Heisig system, and I've left numerous comments on others' blogs to that effect.

Nevertheless, I felt this example was 'extreme' enough to be worth sharing.


As you can see from the photo attached, there is an item on this late-night dessert place, which says:
    南北杏木瓜雪耳


(By the way, I did screw up a bit by initially confusing the 杏 character with 否. Forgive me?)

Anyway ... so doing what I normally do, I tried to work out what the dessert was. Actually, from my Heisig days, I knew the meaning of every character, which are as follow:
    = South North apricot wood melon snow ear

I had no idea what that was!   (All I could guess was that there was melon in there.)

It's easy enough to put this through a dictionary, but even here, it doesn't get much better, because I'm still left with:
    = South North apricot [papaya] snow ear


Upon discussing this with a HK friend, it turns out that the expressions are Cantonese in nature, and so knowing Mandarin (or using a Mandarin dictionary) isn't going to help much. But I persisted ...

Now, using human input and a Cantonese dictionary, I discover that the grouping should be as follows:
    (南北杏)(木瓜)(雪耳)
    (almond)(papaya)(white fungus)


Aside: According to Wikipedia, apricot kernels are sometimes used instead of bitter almonds, but it seems to be accepted in HK amongst those I spoke to that when they see 南北杏 they generally take it to mean 'almond'. White Fungus, in this case, does indeed look more ear-like than mushroom-like.

So there we have it. (Although *I* didn't have it.  No, I ate some kind of warm red bean soup instead. Mainly because I didn't need a dictionary for that one!).

Chinese seems hard, but it's actually harder than that! :-)


Can you recall any specific words that you learned along the way where the word or phrase looks *nothing* like the characters which make it up? If so, please leave a comment below.

Tasting your way around the world

I recently wrote an article for Mango Languages with the above title.

Please pop in and have a read, and make sure you leave a comment if you've had similar (or better) experiences.

To whet your appetite for the article, here's a picture of me eating a chicken head in Beijing  :-x


Greg

Why a meal is worth more to me than my grandmother

Usually the first lesson in a Chinese course includes phrases like:

• Hello
• How are you?
• I am fine
  
• Goodbye

These are useful phrases and you're probably going to use them often - so the sooner you learn them, the better.

Then you learn further, and you reach the chapter where you are meant to memorise words for various family relationships. Father & mother are easy enough, and it probably takes little more effort to learn these words than to actively decide not to learn them.

But then the chapter offers words for: brother (big brother, little brother), sister (ditto), grandmother & grandfather (different words for paternal or maternal grandparents), aunts & uncles (with more variations) ... and my eyes glaze over.

The reality is I don't use these words often (not even in English) - so I'm certainly not likely to use them in Chinese. Sure, if someone talks to me about their family, I really ought to know who they mean, but not now.

In the meantime, I would rather learn other words, like: eat, drink, water, bathroom. And I could learn phrases like "Do you want to eat lunch now?, "Let's go", "What would you like to drink?" These are words & phrases which I definitely use, several times a week.

And to be honest, I still don't know what the word is for Grandmother. I just haven't bothered learning it. If I have use it with a non-English speaking person, I could cheat and say "my mother's mother" for example.

My suggestion to you is that if you're going to learn words, take the time to memorise words you'll use often. (For example, do you know how to say each of these words: now, later, earlier, usually, sometimes, always, never?)


And yes, I know that right after I post this, I could take 1 minute to learn the words for grandmother & grandfather. But I think I'll rather go look up the word for 'milkshake' ...