Tag Archives: Chinese

Stories and Meditations

Watch Your Tone!

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Chinese is a tonal language…what does that mean?

It means that the tone is part of the word, just like which syllable you accent or how you pronounce read (present tense) versus read (past tense). In Chinese it is more extreme than read vs read; the word “ma” can mean mother, hemp, horse, scold or act as a verbal question mark, depending on tone.

In English we use tone primarily to add an element of attitude or emotion to the meaning of the sentence, for example a rising tone makes the sentence questioning (our question mark indicates that a sentence should be read with a rising tone) or a falling tone can indicate that you really mean it. The tones add the same element of meaning regardless of what the words are.

As a lifelong speaker of English I am finding it challenging to switch the way I use tones.  For example, I really want to ask questions with a rising tone. I tend to say “You speak English hemp” instead of “You speak English?”

Being the wish-washy sort I find the falling tone, which is explained as “how you say ‘no’ when you really mean it” hostile sounding, and it seems strange to use it in phrases that are cordial, like “thank you”. I tend to tone it down, which means I mispronounce “thank you” (even though I really mean it!)

When we say “watch your tone!” in English it is an admonition to pay mind to your attitude, to be respectful. In Chinese it would mean something closer to “be careful and precise to make your meaning clear”.

 

China, Stories and Meditations

It is All Chinese to Me

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I am not lazy, but I lack aptitude for language learning. Unless I have a goal it is hard to motivate myself to buckle down and really learn a language. Other stuff drifts to a higher priority.

I am trying to learn Chinese, again. This is my third try. Language isn’t my thing, even in my native tongue when I need words they just don’t come. One reason that I rarely post is that it takes me longer than a day to pull together a response.

When I traveled to China before, I have been twice now, it has been with a lot of dependence on other people. I have managed surprisingly well and had some great experiences (see Let’s Go Fly a Kite, A Picture and a Phrasebook Saved the Day, and Happy Mama).  But this time I decided that

  1. I really want to be able to communicate with people on my own.
  2. I want to go to a couple of places that are not on the western tourist track on my own.

I only decided to go about two months before takeoff, a very short time for someone who is all but tone deaf to try and learn a tonal language.

Before my first and second trips I tried using two different book plus CD programs. With the first, I ran through it once then listened to it in the car. After almost a year and a half of doing that, including several trips to and from California where I heard all three CDs twice a day, I made almost no progress. I was unable to recognize the words when someone other than the canned voice spoke them, or come up with them myself in real life situations (Although, I can say nihao and xiexie). But worse than that, I really could not speak the phrases in the phrase book. I couldn’t figure out how to follow and correctly pronounce the pinyin (Chinese phonics system). Nor could I recognize if someone responded with a phrase in the phrase book.

With the second I just couldn’t get into it. I think it was designed more to be used as an aid in a class where the instructor took you through it rather than working on one’s own. I took that one with me to China last time and tried to work on it in the morning then go out and listen for the phrases. I never recognized a thing.

This time, with six weeks to go before take off I started an on-line course (YoyoChinese.com). This seems to be going better.  It helps to be able to see the person forming the words, and they focus on how the tones sound in a variety of real words (saying “ma” five different ways many, many, many times really didn’t help me). It also has a Chinese on the Street segment so you can hear a variety of voices using the material in context. So every morning now I am spending 45 minutes to an hour studying Chinese.

I know that some people have a better ear, are more linguistically oriented,  and are more courageous about trying than I am, but I really think the idea that one can just pick up a language with no effort is blarney.

T – 14 days for my real life test, I’d better get back to work.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Lazy Learners.”

China, Stories and Meditations

Modern Communications-Is it QQ* Translate…or Chinese itself?

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Being a mama means being there, even if you aren’t there. This morning I received this QQ* message from Emily, my son’s girl friend:

“mama,James, didn’t you call today, he felt a little worried. I told him, something the mama. If you have time, give him the phone number tomorrow.”

I am sure she typed it in cogent Chinese. It is the middle of the night in China right now so I have to cool my heels for several hours before I can get clarification.

This is not my first somewhat obscure message, I no longer panic that I cannot call right away. Instead I amuse myself during the waiting time by guessing what the message might mean.

The first message that comes through was unintentional on her part. When I tried to QQ and call James last night I didn’t get through. This message tells me clearly that James is fine (one time when I couldn’t get through he had been mugged and had his phone stolen).

The essence is that James was worried that I didn’t call yesterday.  However, since he could have QQ’d me himself, Emily may be more worried than he is.

“I told him, something the mama” is a bit puzzling. Was she worried that something is wrong or comforting him that I was busy doing something?

When I tried to learn some Chinese I noticed that they put an emphasis on different aspects of language than we do in English: for example, they do not pluralize nouns or use verb tenses. So a sentence can have both ambiguity about what the subject is (is it a generalization about dogs, or a statement about a particular dog or group of dogs) and when in time the action occurred (is the dog running now, did it run in the past, or will it run in the future?). However, the Chinese seem to have more precision when they talk about emotions than we do. For example, they have about 20 words for happy, discerning between a general state of contentment, delight in the moment, and a feeling of being fortunate.

The words Emily typed in Chinese that came out as “something the mama” and “he was a little worried”, could have had much more precise meanings than what came though in translation. For example, the Chinese word she used that got translated as “something” could have been a word with either calming or alarming overtones. In English we would perhaps have used more words: “something came up”, like an invitation to have coffee with an old friend, or “something happened”, like the car broke down.

I wonder how much our language affects our thinking. Do we who speak English care more about whether it is a generalization about dogs or the behavior of a specific one because our language teaches us to do so?

I am pretty sure that “give him the phone number tomorrow” means give him a call.

A few more hours to kill.

*QQ is a Chinese Facebook-like communications program. It is by far the largest one used in the world. It is used by almost all Chinese people with cell phones and by people who want to communicate with them easily. I can  send a QQ IM and will usually get a response in a few seconds.