I was Chinese for 1.5 minutes today ...

I had lunch today with a friend from New York. He knows I'm learning Mandarin, so he got his one work colleague - a Chinese person - to teach him a couple of phrases before coming to London. The dialogue went roughly like this ...

NY:  This is the phrase I learned ...
Greg:  Go ahead.
NY:  wǒ​ shì​ huàn​ hé​chà​
Greg:  Uhm ...

So in my mind, I'm trying to work out what he said. And the thoughts are buzzing through my head ...

• The sentence clearly begins with "I am" (wǒ​ shì​) - I can hear that. 
• Next is huàn, which sounds like 换 (change/exchange). There are probably other versions of huàn, but right now I can't think of others. If I can work out the rest of the sentence, then maybe this part will make more sense. I'll come back to it ...
• What on earth is hé​chà? I've seen a few words lately that begin with 合 (join/together/...)​, like 合适 (hé​shì=suitable), 合资 (hé​zī= joint venture), but what is hé​chà??
• No, I really can't work out what he said. Let me ask him ...

Greg: Uhm, sorry.  I give up. What are you saying?
NY: wǒ​ shì​ huàn​ hé​chà​ ...

(Dear readers of Mandarin Segments, have you worked it out yet?)

NY:  "I like to drink tea."
Greg:  Oh ... you mean "wǒ xǐ​huan​ hē chá​" !
NY:  Yes, that's what I said.
Greg:  !!!

And this, ladies & gentlemen, is the moment when I experienced how Chinese people must feel when foreigners speak to them in Chinese. The words are wrong. The tones are wrong. And they (just like me) have no idea what is being said.

But I was flattered that he had bothered to memorise a short phrase for me, and it led onto an interesting conversation about tones.

And you know what? It's not so bad to be Chinese and hear a foreigner make mistakes when trying to speak Chinese. Why was I so nervous to try in the beginning?

You're not nervous, are you? I can say for sure, having been Chinese for 1.5 minutes, that you have nothing to be nervous about!


You're welcome to leave comments in English, but for fun, why don't you leave comments in Chinese - whether using hanzi or pinyin? Keep it as simple as you like, and take a risk. How many of you will dare?

Quickies don't work for me

I recently got back from two weeks in China (having visited Yangshuo, Guilin and Beijing), and I wanted to share a quick observation about my ability to interact with people in Mandarin.

Am I the only one who experiences this? I'd love to hear from you - either way - so please leave a quick comment below.

Basically, when I have a conversation which lasts more than a few minutes, I have a relatively high success rate: I can understand them, they can understand me, and we can cover a decent range of topics. But when the conversation is just a quick one - one of us asking a question and the other required to answer - the success rate is definitely not as good.

For example:

• I might ask someone for directions - and they reply back to me with a series of rapid sentences which I just don't get. Sure, I hear words like "qián​miàn" (forwards), "yòu​bian" (on your right) and "rán​hòu" (thereafter) ... but it's too much too quickly, and I invariably have to ask them to repeat themselves more slowly.
• Interestingly, when I first engage them in a short-ish conversation first, and so give them the opportunity to gauge my vocab and listening-skills, then I have a much greater success rate in understanding the directions which I then ask for - because they will have calibrated to my level.
• Similarly, when I enter a shop, and the assistant comes up to me and speaks a few sentences - I often have no idea what they're saying. Again, too much, too fast. It might be something as simply as "Thanks for popping in. We've got some great special offers, but I'll leave you to look around yourself for a while, and then when you're ready please come speak to me again." Or maybe they're just asking me not to touch anything because I might break it.
• Also, when getting into a taxi (especially in Beijing) and telling the driver where I want to go, I guess his assumption is that I can speak Chinese well - because they then launch into a one minute speech, which usually goes right over my head. (When I tell them that I didn't understand, usually the younger drivers will try again more slowly, probably using simpler language, while the older drivers either tend to say it again just as fast, or they simply shrug and remain silent.)

Is there a moral to this story? Probably - I can think of a few. But why don't you take a moment, think about what this means to you in relation to your own Mandarin studies, and then leave a comment for other readers.

The two most common mistakes of Mandarin podcasters

I listen to Chinese podcasts to learn Chinese, and I accept it's perhaps a little off-colour to be commenting on their English. But there are two very common mistakes I hear these podcasters make - which (oddly) seems to be as common with the native-English podcasters as with the Chinese - and I really need to get this off my chest.


1. pronunciation
The word is "proNUNciation", and not "proNOUNciation". I know it's a little confusing because the verb is "proNOUNce", but when it becomes a noun it loses the "O". Yes, the spelling actually changes. Given that this word is often heard on language-tuition podcasts, this mistake occurs regularly.

(And if you don't believe me, look it up in a dictionary :-)

2. mnemonic
Again, this word is commonly used, and often pronounced incorrectly. The correct phonetic pronunciation (proNUNciation, BTW) is "NE-mon-ic". It is not "NOO-mon-ic". Maybe you're thinking of a word like "pneumatic", which does indeed begin with "NOO-...".  But not this one.

(And if you don't believe me ... )


There, I've said it.  I feel better now.  Thanks for listening.  (And if you can think of a mnemonic for getting the pronunciation of "pronunciation" correct, let us know :-)

Happy Birthday, Mandarin Segments!

Mandarin Segments is 1 today!

Happy birthday!
生日快乐!
shēng​rì​kuài​lè​!

• During the last year, I have posted 63 articles
• There have been hundreds of comments left on this blog
• According to Feedburner, I have many hundreds of subscribers (and this excludes all potential subscribers from China, because BlogSpot remains blocked there)
• I have had around 10,000 unique visitors, according to StatCounter
•  My monthly visitor count has grown consistently over the last year.

A special thanks to you, the readers.  Thanks for reading the articles, for leaving comments, and for sending me emails.

If you have any special requests for the coming year, please let a comment below ...

Mandarin is not "antidisestablishmentarian"

This article answers a question that most of you have been thinking about since you started learning Chinese: How does Mandarin link together the following: Mary Poppins, long English words, mermaids, and total indifference??

I took a huge amount of pride as a child being able to say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and in later years my long-word-of-choice was antidisestablishmentarianism. Of course, at the time, I had no idea what either of them meant, but because of the nature of the English language, I'm now able to note the following:

antidisestablishmentarianism:

   anti-X  --> against or opposite to X
   dis-X  --> against or opposite to X
   X-ment  --> generally makes a noun out of X
   X-arian  --> having a nature of X
   X-ism  --> the system of X

Putting it all together we are not surprised to see that the dictionary provides the following definition: "opposition to the belief that there should no longer be an official church in a country". Other than the church referenc, it's quite logical.

But Mandarin doesn't always work that way. And this is part of the reason, I suspect, that so many Westerners have difficulty learning the language. (In other words, sometimes you have to learn something, and not just rely on intuitive extrapolation to guess it.)


Of course, you do get words like 'diving' (跳水, tiào​shuǐ​, literally: 'jump water'),  'mermaid' (美人鱼, měi​rén​yú, literally: ​pretty person fish) and 'chameleon' (变色龙, biàn sè lóng, literally: change colour dragon) (see this great blog for more unusual examples) - words which are neatly "built up" out of their components. But below is an example I was thinking about recently which demonstrates my point:

   无 (wú): not / without / un-
   所 (suǒ): place / actually
   谓 (wèi): to speak / to name / meaning

Our first attempt is to piece together 所 and 谓  - which gives us (according to the dictionary)
   所谓 (suǒ​wèi): so-called

It is not impossible to reverse-engineer using the definitions above ("actually" & "to name"), but if you hadn't learned the word already, you're probably unlikely to guess its meaning. That's OK - we see this a lot in Chinese.


But the next step is simply to put the "not" in front of 所谓. This should be straight forward, and I would expect the word to mean something like "not so-called". Right?  But instead we get:
   无所谓 (wú​suǒ​wèi): to be indifferent / no matter

What?


Sorry, but even knowing the meaning of all three characters and knowing the meaning of the "meaty" part of the word, there is no way I would guess it has this definition.

This is not an excuse not to learn Mandarin. It certainly doesn't prove that Mandarin is impossible. It merely means that sometimes you have to go past the 'intuitive' - and just learn it.



If you have words that you find non-intuititive, please mention them in the comments below. I'd also love to hear from some of you who have never commented to MandarinSegments before ...

The taxi driver who taught me everything

During my recent trip to China, I spent 40 minutes in a taxi to Guilin Airport, and I got an important perspective on language learning - both a kick up the butt and a gentle pat on the head. (No, that was me doing it to myself - not the taxi driver!)

The conversation started off well, and we spoke (in Mandarin) about language learning, working in different countries, the most interesting things I did in Guilin, and so on. I felt good, I understood what he was saying, and was able to communicate my thoughts to him. This lasted about 20 minutes.

Then the conversation moved on to traffic-related topics. We were still doing fine while talking about traffic jams, dangerous driving, accidents, injuries vs deaths, and so on. But it started to go wrong at the time when he was trying to say "driver's licence" - a word I did not know. Eventually he showed me his, I said the closest word I could think of (证书, zhèng​shū, certificate/credentials) to confirm.

He agreed, and we were on track again.

But not for long.


At this point I really wasn't following him anymore, and I spent a fair amount of time saying 'ting bu dong' ("I don't understand what you're saying"). My mind started to wonder, and I started thinking about what the various English words that might be relevant here ...

roadworks, tar, pedestrians (yup I know that one), diversions, petrol (know this one too), oil (again), accelerator, brakes, parking (ting che), headlamps (I can take a guess this one), toll gates & toll fees (words that probably end in 'men' and 'fei') ...

This reminded me that to truly become fluent in a language, there really are a lot of words you need to know - there are so many words I don't know, even about cars & traffic (which is just one topic out of millions). So many more.


For a while there I became disheartened. At that stage I started talking to the taxi driver again, and he was saying that one day he would want to learn English too. And I realised that whatever language you learn, you would have to learn all these words.

Sometimes I just find myself convinced that Mandarin is ridiculously difficult, and it would be so easy if I were learning another language. But of course that's not true. Ultimately, if you're learning a new language you have to learn lots of words, sayings, and sentence structures.

So stop complaining and just get on with it.

How committed are you to your studies? How many new words did you learn today? And in the last month?

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The "sleeping cats" guide to pinyin pronunciation

How much does pinyin confuse you? Which is the worst part for you?

In this short post, I show how "cats & zeds" will help you overcome a common pronuncation mistake. (PS. I know Americans say "zee" not "zed" - but for this to work, pretend you don't.)

Pinyin is the system which provides a method for pronouncing the Chinese characters using a Roman alphabet (and tone marks). It was developed by the Chinese for the Chinese - and let's face it, although it's the system we use in the West, if Westerners had designed it, I think we would have used different letters to represent the different sounds.

c is pronounced "ts",  z is "dz", zh is like "j", x is "sh" (kinda) ... sigh.

For me, the parts I got wrong in the beginning were mainly 'c' and 'z', and even today I find myself stumbling over words like "cún​zài" (存在 - to exist) when I talk too fast for my brain.

You might have a similar problem. In fact, you might not even realise you have the problem!

For example, when I meet other students of Mandarin in London, and I listen to sentences like "I live in London" (wǒ​ zhù​ zài​ Lún​dūn​), the 'zai' is often pronounced 'tsai' and not 'dzai' - so I know I'm not the only one.

Perhaps this might help ...
    cats & zeds
    [c]a[ts] & [z]e[dz]
    c is prounced 'ts'  &  z is pronounced 'dz'

Test yourself - how do you pronounce 汉字 (Hàn​zì​ - Chinese character), 现在 (xiàn​zài​ - now), 菜单 (cài​dān​ - menu), 词典 (cí​diǎn​ - dictionary)?

So cún​zài would (phonetically) be [ts]un-[dz]ai. Got it?
Cats & Zeds. Got it?

Good.

Chinese words which contain letters?

I remember doing a ChinesePod (affiliated link) lesson about going Dutch (i.e. splitting the bill), and I was surprised to find out that the Mandarin word for this is "AA zhì" (AA制). 

Yes, honestly - the actual Mandarin word contains the letters "AA". Very odd. (You can research why this is, and what the AA stands for, if you want ... there are plenty of different opinions out there.)

So I got to wondering ... what other Mandarin words contain English letters?  (And I'm not referring to 'cheats' like the word 'DVD'.)  So I compiled a list of some words, but would really appreciate any additional suggestions you might have. So leave us a comment with others that you know ...

   AA zhì (AA制):  going Dutch / splitting the bill
   A piàn (A片):  adult movie  / porn film
   B chāo (B超 - or 'B型超声' in full):  type-B ultrasound
   BP jī (BP 机):  beeper ​
   kǎ​lā OK (卡拉 OK):  karaoke 
   M (M): menstruation (as in: 你有M吗?)
   niú​ B (​牛B):  awesome  / cocky
   N xíng​ bàn​dǎo​tǐ​ (N型半导体):  N-type semiconductor
   N zhǒng​ (N种):  n-type (anyone know what this one is?)
   T xù (T恤):  t-shirt
   X guāng (X光):  X-ray

FYI creating this list wasn't as easy as ABC. i.e. It took some effort. But it's now A-OK (AFAIK). So TTFN.  (And of course I'll BRB.)  OK?

A (flowery) connection between Chinese & English

There are a number of reasons why I find learning Mandarin a bigger challenge than the other languages I have learned. Basically, Mandarin and English are just so damn different.

There is almost no overlap in how words sound in English vs Mandarin. (Just open up a Spanish-English dictionary to a random page, and see how much similarity there is!). Also, sentence construction is very different.

And yet, every now and then, I come across something which links the two languages, but it is difficult to explain how that came about.

I'm not referring to words like 'microphone' (麦克风) - which is pronounced "mài​kè​fēng​" - this was intentionally created as a loanword from English.   No, I'm talking about something odder.

Take, for example, the word 花 (huā​) which means 'flower'.

It has another meaning, and that is "to spend" - which I first heard in a ChinesePod* lesson. In English, we talk about "spending time" or "spending money". And this is the interesting thing ... in Chinese, when using the word 花 (huā​) - is is also used both for spending time and for spending money.

For example:

   Spend your money where it's needed most
   钱要花在刀口上
   qián yào huā zài dāokǒu shàng

   Spend a lot of time
   很花时间
   hěn huā shíjiān


This realisation hasn't improved my Mandarin learning - oddities like this aren't common enough to rely on.  However, by the time you've finished reading this, you'll probably never forget: 花 (huā​) means flower, to spend time, or to spend money.

If you're feeling brave, can you work out for yourself how to say "I spent a bit of time deciding which flower to spend my money on".  My version** (with Yen's support) appears below.

_____________________


* affiliated link
** 我花了一些时间决定花钱买哪种花