The one flashcard I review more than any other

:)

Who's on First? (this time in Mandarin Chinese)

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled "Who's on First?" - which made reference to the famous Abbot & Costello sketch. If you haven't seen it, now would be a good time to watch that video.

With all the hype around the Gangnam Style music video, there is even a Mandarin version called "Laowai Style" - I wrote a post that included the lyrics of the Chinese parodied version (and also included some vocab & grammar lesson :-).

It was put together by Jesse Appell, and it seems that he has also created a Mandarin version of the "Who's on First?" sketch in Mandarin Chinese.

Having just watched it, I can confirm that the humour still works, and in fact it doesn't even require a very high level of Mandarin to follow.

For your amusement, here is the video ...

Delusions - when roadsigns become Chinese characters!

Learning Chinese will re-wire your brain. 

OK, this isn't a scientific study I'm referring to - it's only my own experience. But check whether you would pass or fail ...

I was walking through London's St Katherine Docks recently, and there was a little pedestrian bridge near Dicken's Inn. I saw this little sign at the one end ... which basically means that mothers should look after their kids. I guess.


But that's not what I read. Nope.  What did you think when you saw the sign (pictured to the right)?

Yeah, me too.  I immediately thought about the character for "good" in Mandarin - 好 (hǎo​). This is made up of 女 (woman) and 子 (child).

So I was chuckling at myself, taking this picture ... and all the people walking past looked at me really strangely!


(Now would probably be the right time to read a previous post on How to end with 'hǎo'.)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

OK, let's now have some fun ... what other signs make you think of Chinese characters?

• For example, this character would probably be "train". Below I see "fire" and "car". The Chinese word for train is: 火车 (huǒ​chē​,  i.e. fire car)
  

• What could the following signs be? Leave your ideas as a comment below ...
  

Stop whining!

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself studying Chinese. It's so difficult, and anyone else - studying any other language - is having a much easier time than I am. If only I were studying a different language ...

Like English. Yes, English is easy. After all, I was speaking English when I was a baby.

But perhaps we forget how messy English can be. For example, look at this sequence of words ...

• thou, tough, though, through, thorough

We're pretty much only adding one letter at a time, but note how the pronunciation of the consecutive words changes so much. (And note that although the word pronounce contains "u", the word pronunciation does not.)

Take a glance here to see that the letters "ough" can have seven different pronunciations.

And have you ever seen the word "ghoti"? Did you know it is pronounced "fish"? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, look here.

Are you close enough to close the window? Do you wonder why a fire can raise a house to the ground? When an alarm turns on, why do we call it going off?

There is no ham in hamburger, or egg in eggplant. Guinea Pigs are not from Guinea, nor are they pigs. Sweetmeats are candy, but Sweetbreads are meat. Dancers dance, but fingers don't fing. People recite at a play, but play at a recital. A slim chance and a fat chance are the same, but a wise man is very different to a wise guy. I know what unrequited love is, but have never heard of requited love.

In English: I am / you are / she is. In Chinese: wǒ shì / nǐ shì / tā shì [我是 / 你是 / 她是]. This saves a lot of time when memorising ... I remember how many months I spent memorising the conjugation of verbs when studying German at school.

And as I wind up my watch to get it started, I wind up this post to finish it off. OK.

(With thanks to the many people who've made the effort to document why English is a very strange language. Aren't you glad you're studying Mandarin?)