My favorite English expression from my wife

[keelec]

Jet's American versions, beginning at age two -- that she still uses interchangeably: Poc-A-tit = pocket Bas-A-kit = basket Cell-A-phone = Cell phone (sure, why not, if you have a telephone, why not a cell-A-phone)------ this one she still hasn't discovered yet, since we don't have cell phones.... But at age 9 hmmm...... could be a little hard on her when her classmates find out ---- too bad.....

Interesting.... I think I would help out the poor kid though.

 

However, I wanted to ask. Is Chinese like Japanese which never has two consonant sounds together? And, if they adopt "English" words, they usually add a few extra vowels?

[oregonknl]

Clifford,

 

As you probably know, the language that unites China is written, not spoken. Many areas speak a completely different language than Mandarin, or even Cantonese...

 

So your question is a little difficult for me to anwer, because Jet came at age two, and while she spoke very well for her age, she spoke a dialect of Mandarin in the Taijhou area of Jiangsu... It was hard for our representitive, who spoke excellent Mandarin to understand the caregivers at Jet's orphanage.. And to a lesser extent, Eve was the same way --- a dialect of Mandarin, but accented.. Eve's English contiunes to be inflected, and she still has the alliteation problems often observed in our Chinglish speaking loves --- Jet's English is now perfect, except for the few words that I have studiously held back from correcting.. Fei, first spoke Hunanese, which is a different language from Mandarin, then learned Cantonese and Mandarin pretty much at the same time, then learned British English starting in HS. --- So listening to her -- who knows where that accent is coming from! She can be speaking along in nearly perfect "King's English" , very prim & proper, and then makes this almost honking sound in pronunciation --- Beg your pardon sweetie, what did you just say ~?

 

Fei's Mandarin must be ok though, since both girls are learning standard Mandarin, and have no trouble understanding her..

 

About correcting Jet --- Trust me, Clifford, when you have kids, there will be several aspects of their childhoods that are so endearing, that you will not rush them to grow out of...

[Scott & Lai]

Clifford,

 

I can say that, at least for Cantonese, the answer is yes. That's what Lai and her niece explained to me last year; they don't have two consonants together as one sound, so when they see such in English, they think of it as sort of a sound and a half. They then want to make it two separate sounds. So, when they were here last year, Lai and Dory (who's English is very good) and Lai's sister (Dory's mom) kept calling me "See-got" Lai can say "Scott", but she still often calls me "See-got", and I have to say I encourage that because I find it very endearing

 

In the car on the way from dinner one evening, Lai and Dory and Lai's sister would look at street signs and convert them into Chinglish. "Orangethorpe" became something like "Ahran-gee-ho": the "ng" was separated into two syllables, they don't have the "th" sound, so the "t" was dropped, and as Dory explained, Cantonese tend to get lazy about word endings, so the "rpe" was also dropped

 

Knott's Berry Farm became "Not-a-see Bera" followed by the untranslated Cantonese word for "farm"

 

Carl,

 

I wonder if Bing's difficulty with the "rl" in "Carl", but not the one in "darling", has to do with the one in "Carl" being two consonants sounded together as almost one sound, while that in "darling" is more separated in pronunciation?

[Phil & Ningning]

I don't yet speak any publicly usable chinese, so these last few posts have been very enlightening for me.

My sweet Ning gets confused from time to time with the gender based pronouns and verb tense. I was not aware of the lack of double consanants but it does explain alot (I say clothes and she says cloth-es). Originally a cantonese speaker, her word endings are also a bit less prominant than would be ideal, especially words ending in an 'R' sound (manager becomes mana-jhe). Also the difference between a long vowel and a short vowel, as in gas or 'gace'.

She speaks with a soft and kind manner that I hope never changes. God I love her!

Phil

[who]

My wife speaks english pretty well but she always has a problem between chicken and kitchen???

So funny to hear her say i,m going to the chicken to cook kitchen

[tonado]

Don't name your son "Dino". It sounds like Dean Lo in Cantonese, which means "Insane Fellow". My aunt's daughter name is Christine. She calls her Crazy Dean, which sounds like Crazy and Insane.

[Robert S.]

My wife speaks english pretty well but she always has a problem between chicken and kitchen???

So funny to hear her say i,m going to the chicken to cook kitchen

That is so cute!!!

 

My wife always gets plastic and practice mixed up.

 

The best one was one time I called her and asked her what the weather was in China and she said "nose coming." It took me a few seconds to figure out she meant "snow coming."

[who]

Don't name your son "Dino".  It sounds like Dean Lo in Cantonese, which means "Insane Fellow".  My aunt's daughter name is Christine.  She calls her Crazy Dean, which sounds like Crazy and Insane.

we were at a place in shanzhen that had a high hill that we went to the top of and my wife would not get close to the edge and i keep telling her she was scared of hights ,than we went to eat with her dad and while at dinner we were telling hin of the day we had and i told him about the hill and said she was a chicken women and he got a little angry,than my wife told me that chicken women mean lady of the evening in china/hooker

[warpedbored]

Li is quite fluent so I don't have too many stories about her saying the wrong thing, surely not as many as she has about me saying the wrong thing in Chinese.

Interestingly, since coming stateside one of her favorite TV shows is "That 70's Show". She really loves Red! She just sits there and waits for him to say "dumb ass". Often she walks around saying certain people (not me of course) are dumb asses. I can only agree of course, or else I too would be a dumb ass.

I had to aplaud this post. I am still chuckling while imagining Li walking around the room muttering "dumb ass"

[se_lang]

Don't name your son "Dino".  It sounds like Dean Lo in Cantonese, which means "Insane Fellow".  My aunt's daughter name is Christine.  She calls her Crazy Dean, which sounds like Crazy and Insane.

we were at a place in shanzhen that had a high hill that we went to the top of and my wife would not get close to the edge and i keep telling her she was scared of hights ,than we went to eat with her dad and while at dinner we were telling hin of the day we had and i told him about the hill and said she was a chicken women and he got a little angry,than my wife told me that chicken women mean lady of the evening in china/hooker

Oh ya I called my MM a chicken, She asked why I called her that then explained B) FYI in viet nam they are called noodles.

[who]

Don't name your son "Dino".  It sounds like Dean Lo in Cantonese, which means "Insane Fellow".  My aunt's daughter name is Christine.  She calls her Crazy Dean, which sounds like Crazy and Insane.

we were at a place in shanzhen that had a high hill that we went to the top of and my wife would not get close to the edge and i keep telling her she was scared of hights ,than we went to eat with her dad and while at dinner we were telling hin of the day we had and i told him about the hill and said she was a chicken women and he got a little angry,than my wife told me that chicken women mean lady of the evening in china/hooker

Oh ya I called my MM a chicken, She asked why I called her that then explained FYI in viet nam they are called noodles.

Put them both together you have chickin-noddle

[LiuXia's Husband]

So far my favorite is 'tomorning' which of course means tomorrow morning.

[Robert S.]

Yesterday Ping-ping looked out the door and said "I see cabbage!!!" It took me a few seconds to figure out that the local rabbit had come by for a visit.

 

Today she said she was cooking squirrel. I did not know we had any of these cute rodents in the fridge. Then I realized she meant to say squid. I laughed and imagined bizarre tree squids.

 

[Bobby]

My wife speaks english pretty well but she always has a problem between chicken and kitchen???

So funny to hear her say i,m going to the chicken to cook kitchen

That is so cute!!!

 

My wife always gets plastic and practice mixed up.

 

The best one was one time I called her and asked her what the weather was in China and she said "nose coming." It took me a few seconds to figure out she meant "snow coming."

I get the same thing, except its "potato" and "tomato".. she keeps telling me that she doesn't want "potatos" when we go out for hamburgers, then gets mad when she doesn't get any fries ..

 

My other favourite is "call phone" (cell phone). I've had to get used to "trash" being "rubbish" and that we "take away" things, not "throw away".. That's ok, though, she laughs at my Chinese just as hard.