Chinaisms - How the English language works

[jkobman]

chicken hands = chicken claw

eggo = cooked egg

[warpedbored]

My honey speaks pretty good english in terms of grammer and vocabulary, but her pronunciation is still on the "cute" side of correct.  One thing she does a lot which she can't seem to control is putting an "-ah" at the end of many words.  "Book-ah", "soup-ah".  I tell her she should try to stop doing that if she wants to improve her english, but then she does it right in her next sentence, even though she doesn't want to do that, she can't control it!

 

Oh, and another, why do so many Asian-language speakers confuse the sexes when they speak english?!  My honey is always mixing up "him and her", "he and she".  For example, she'll say "My sister is home now, he is eating some Chinese bread-ah, later she will go get his hair permed-ah."  And no matter how much I try to correct her, she can't seem to stop mixing up these words, she says he/she and him/her are so similar  So funny  We both joke about it 

Here in Portland we have light rail system called MAX. Bing keeps calling it the maxi

[Robert S.]

A few days ago we were eating a spicy dish she had made so my eyes were already filled with water and I was sniffling a little bit from the hot pepper. Then she got me started laughing and laughing very hard, at which point she handed me a tissue saying I had "noodles coming." That was a moment of pure enjoyment to put a cap of linguistic pleasure on top of having such a good time.

 

 

noodles coming = runny nose

[corvette]

True it's really hard to use the right gender in oral communication using English, cos in Chinese the pronunciations for him/her are the same.Sometimes I mix them up too but I will know it as soon as I spill it out so I just correct it immediately by myself. But compared to French, the gender issue in English is rather simple. In French, everything has gender. It was really pain in my butts when I studied French years ago. I always wondered why the table was not male but female. Still don't understand.

 

Years ago when I was tutoring a secondary school kid she told me a joke. There was a Chinese student living in the states who witnessed a car accident. The cop asked him what happened. But the student's English was crappy. He hesitated for a while and breathed deeply then said, " one car come, one car go, 2 cars kiss boom boom boom." lol

 

Another joke told by one of my friends living in SF.

 

One day a Chinese student went to movie in NYC. A pair of love birds were sitting behind the student and kept chitchatting, giggling. The student felt very annoyed and he turned back and said, " you see no see? no see you go!" (You want to watch the movie or not? If you dont' want to watch it, please go. )

 

[bald guy]

Saw a lady walking down the stree in Nanjing, her t-shirt said, "lay me dude", trust me;  she had no clue.

JPD

That is funny!

 

You know, people here go around with Chinese writing on their shirts and have no idea what it says. I'll bet they laugh at us for that!!!

What is really sad is when Americans wear clothes with English written on them and they still don't understand the meaning.

 

I used to work at a club here in Beantown. One night a college aged girl came in wearing a shirt that said "Poontang". She was asked, by one of my co-workers, if she knew what this meant. And trust me, she had no clue! Very, very sad!

[Guest enight]

talking about English written on T-shirts... this Summer we were in Vancouver Canada... and when we were turnning into a plaza... there were several teenagers walking towards us...

 

we suddenly noticed one of the girl (a pretty white girl) whose white t-shirt has Bold and HUGE black Characters 'F***!' (it was the real 4 characters not '*') on the front! .

 

I was so shocked even forgot to get my camera to picture that!

 

never had that experience in the States though... seems Canadians are more ... open? hahaaaaaaaaa

[frank1538]

I've seen French Connection United Kingdom logos on shirts. For those of you who don't know, FCUK is a legtimate manufacturer/retailer of clothes and accessories: http://www.frenchconnection.com/index_2.htm Maybe the girl in Canada couldn't quite get the spelling right.

[Chinese Wife!!!]

I've seen French Connection United Kingdom logos on shirts.  For those of you who don't know, FCUK is a legtimate manufacturer/retailer of clothes and accessories:  http://www.frenchconnection.com/index_2.htm  Maybe the girl in Canada couldn't quite get the spelling right.

How about: in an effort to skirt the trademark Chinese manufacturer made 5,000,000 of them and simply swapped the letters around ????

[frank1538]

I've seen French Connection United Kingdom logos on shirts.  For those of you who don't know, FCUK is a legtimate manufacturer/retailer of clothes and accessories:  http://www.frenchconnection.com/index_2.htm  Maybe the girl in Canada couldn't quite get the spelling right.

How about: in an effort to skirt the trademark Chinese manufacturer made 5,000,000 of them and simply swapped the letters around ????

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

[warpedbored]

I've seen French Connection United Kingdom logos on shirts.  For those of you who don't know, FCUK is a legtimate manufacturer/retailer of clothes and accessories:  http://www.frenchconnection.com/index_2.htm  Maybe the girl in Canada couldn't quite get the spelling right. B)

How about: in an effort to skirt the trademark Chinese manufacturer made 5,000,000 of them and simply swapped the letters around ????

One hole in this theory. Since when did the Chinese manufacturers care about the legality of trademarks?

[Chinese Wife!!!]

I've seen French Connection United Kingdom logos on shirts.  For those of you who don't know, FCUK is a legtimate manufacturer/retailer of clothes and accessories:  http://www.frenchconnection.com/index_2.htm  Maybe the girl in Canada couldn't quite get the spelling right. B)

How about: in an effort to skirt the trademark Chinese manufacturer made 5,000,000 of them and simply swapped the letters around ????

One hole in this theory. Since when did the Chinese manufacturers care about the legality of trademarks?

Only when trying to ship massive amounts of shirts to the US in COSCO shipping containers and clearing customs MAYBE???? B)

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Just a quick aside...

 

Here in Denver, when the Broncos play the Chiefs, a local radio station has T-shirts that have FU-KC on them.

 

This one takes a little set-up. ShuPing and I have talked about having 2 children and now that she's pregnant, she's having second thoughts about a second baby.

 

Talking with her this morning, she told me that her stomach is full and she can't eat, meaning she's sick to her stomach. This is due to her morning sickness. While we were talking, I heard her burp and then she said she felt very sick and I should call her back later.

 

I called back about 15 minutes later and she answered the phone, said, "Oh darling!", I heard her throw-up a few times and then a couple of moans and she said, "I think only one baby is enough", then she went back to hurling.

 

I couldn't help myself, I started laughing and telling her I was sorry. When she was done and felt better, she said, "I think, if we have another baby, you will have it." Meaning, I'd better get pregnant if I want another baby.

[Robert S.]

Egg table = oval shaped table

[Phil & Ningning]

I love reading these threads.

 

Wear clo-thes = to put them on

Unwear clo-thes = to take them off

 

[Mengxin]

talking about English written on T-shirts... this Summer we were in Vancouver Canada...  and when we were turnning into a plaza... there were several teenagers walking towards us...

 

we suddenly noticed one of the girl (a pretty white girl) whose white t-shirt has Bold and HUGE black Characters 'F***!' (it was the real 4 characters not '*') on the front! .  B)

 

I was so shocked even forgot to get my camera to picture that! B)

 

never had that experience in the States though... seems Canadians are more ... open? hahaaaaaaaaa

I saw a Chinese girl wearing a black t-shirt that said "Spider bait" on it in big letters. What the ...?? B)