Post: #1

Cool video on the complexities of the Chinese language:

Post: #2

Would buy 17.99 chinese course from this guy.

Post: #3

I'm not expert on Chinese, but the way he mentions the differences are largely due to the localization of people isn't that more a dialectal difference than white man right china man wrong because he is schooled in what I'd assume is proper Chinese.

That'd be like an German flying to America with perfect standard English, going to New York and doing the same thing and thinking, only non New Yorkers can speak proper English since they all fail at the pronunciation of "Coffee".

Post: #4

Delete

Post: #5

Eh, I turned this off about 30 seconds in when he's correcting those people on tones.

This sorta stuff makes me roll my eyes. There is this really weird sub-set of expats (usually white) who are SUPER DUPER into the language to the point that they study the language to the exclusion of everything else and are really pedantic about it.

Think about that guy who learns spanish (spanglish) in high school who goes into south American and can say everything but still just sounds weird because he sounds like a textbook instead of a living, breathing person.


The whole tone thing was made just to be able to teach the language to other groups of people. I have coworkers who speak several dialects of Chinese who look at me funny when I ask them about tones in Chinese. Many of them just speak the language and don't really give much thought to "perfect" pronunciation.

Like Cascade just said, this is the equivalent of saying a Bostonian doesn't speak "proper" English because he saws "cawfee" instead of "coffee."

Post: #6

The Chinese are pretty polite about having their language corrected by a white devil.

If an Asian dude tried this in a small town near me he would get a bunch of rednecks mumbling things under their breath like "rice burners," and "you people didn't have any trouble finding Pearl Harbor."

And if he didn't shut up, it would get interesting. And involve a hike in the woods.

Post: #7

It's a big achievement to speak better than the locals. This guy might speak better than the locals and "spell" better too. Of course he wants to show off. I always think it's cool when a foreigner speaks perfect local language, particularly when they speak a formal version of the language, because the locals don't usually and it's good to have the language reaffirmed that way. If you're going to live long term in a place, it is far better to aim for a formal, old fashioned way of speak than to go for street dialect imo.

Post: #8

(04-29-2017 11:14 AM)Fortis Wrote:  Eh, I turned this off about 30 seconds in when he's correcting those people on tones.

This sorta stuff makes me roll my eyes. There is this really weird sub-set of expats (usually white) who are SUPER DUPER into the language to the point that they study the language to the exclusion of everything else and are really pedantic about it.

Think about that guy who learns spanish (spanglish) in high school who goes into south American and can say everything but still just sounds weird because he sounds like a textbook instead of a living, breathing person.


The whole tone thing was made just to be able to teach the language to other groups of people. I have coworkers who speak several dialects of Chinese who look at me funny when I ask them about tones in Chinese. Many of them just speak the language and don't really give much thought to "perfect" pronunciation.

Like Cascade just said, this is the equivalent of saying a Bostonian doesn't speak "proper" English because he saws "cawfee" instead of "coffee."

I think his intent in making the video was to show that even native speakers of the language have problems with it and how complicated it is. He does seem to be respectful of the people he interviews and is not making fun of them. It is particularly telling as to how hard Chinese is that even native speakers have trouble with the tones and characters.

From what I understand, putting the wrong tone on a word is different from a different pronunciation in English. I remember a woman writing about her experience learning Chinese while in China while her husband was posted there for his company. (Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons In Life, Love, And Language by Deborah Fallows https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Chinese-...in+chinese ).

In one chapter she related how she went to a fast food restaurant and want to get take out or an order to go. While she knew the words, she did not have all of the tones correct. As a result, it took a while before they understood what she wanted. The person taking the order called for other staff to try to help figure out what she wanted and it was several minutes before they could figure out what she wanted. At one point her asking for 'take out' was sounding like she was asking for a hug to the staff because of the wrong tones she had on the words.

As another example, the word for mother. Pinyin is ma with a high neutral tone. ma is also pinyin for horse, to bother and to scold. The difference is the tone put on the word.

ma with a high neutral tone is mother.
ma with a falling and then rising tone is horse.
ma with a falling from high tone is to scold.
ma with a brief and soft tone is an interrogative particle. (asking a question?)

Now compare that with "cawfee" verses coffee. The worst that would happen is that another English speaker would not know what you are saying or simply get it wrong, but I think people in any area of the US would realize that you were saying coffee and that recognize the region of the US you came from.

Post: #9

This Chinese still sounds like foreigner Chinese.

He's over-pronouncing it.

Post: #10

The foreigners with the best Chinese are the Jehovah's witnesses, no competition. I had a nice chat with two of them once. They said they started learning conversational Mandarin very early. Absolutely no foreigner accent.

Post: #11

Other thoughts on the video.

1: From what I have found out, many people in different parts of China simply have a lot of trouble when speaking to each other, even in Mandarin. Mandarin is taught in all of the schools as an effort to make a national language so everyone can understand everyone, but even with this most movies will still carry Mandarin subtitles because people still have problems. This is what I have seen from what is streamed over KyLinTV and another (not sure of the brand name) Chinese TV and movies over internet service over the years. (Internet connect box with a monthly service that you buy to be able to stream TV programs and movies over the internet.) almost all movies have Mandarin subtitles.

2: There has been some effort to improve the teaching of Mandarin in the schools. From what I can tell, the typical method of teaching is rote memorization where the teacher stands in front of the class and has the students write new words repeatedly on paper while going over the strokes and pronunciation. New words are added as time goes on.
In English, students learn the 26 letter alphabet, and after learning some words, can usually sound out new words on their own.

3: There has been some efforts at changing the learning of Chinese based on Chinese radicals and grouping together words that use the same base radicals. From what I understand, this would help the learning of reading and writing of Chinese, and cut down on the rote memorization for those words, but I am not aware if this helps with the pronunciation of new words.

Post: #12

(04-29-2017 11:14 AM)Fortis Wrote:  The whole tone thing was made just to be able to teach the language to other groups of people. I have coworkers who speak several dialects of Chinese who look at me funny when I ask them about tones in Chinese. Many of them just speak the language and don't really give much thought to "perfect" pronunciation.

Native speakers are not a good source of information about their language. They know how to speak it but they don't have explicit knowledge -- and they don't know they don't have that. (For example, in authentic conversation, the English word FOR usually rhymes with HER, not with OR. Native speakers have to hear a recording to be convinced of this fact. To give a non-linguistic example, you breathe and you walk but you don't really know the mechanisms involved.)

When it comes to language, people just repeat 'facts' they learned from their primary school teachers. I recently had a native Spanish speaker tell me that Spaniards pronounce B and V differently. In spontaneous speech, they actually don't. Native speakers of tonal languages certainly use tones but they aren't always aware of them or able to articulate the tone of a particular syllable. Victor Mair has documented Chinese ignorance and dogmatism about their language(s) extensively on Language Log.

Post: #13

(04-29-2017 11:14 AM)Fortis Wrote:  The whole tone thing was made just to be able to teach the language to other groups of people. I have coworkers who speak several dialects of Chinese who look at me funny when I ask them about tones in Chinese. Many of them just speak the language and don't really give much thought to "perfect" pronunciation.

Like Cascade just said, this is the equivalent of saying a Bostonian doesn't speak "proper" English because he saws "cawfee" instead of "coffee."

Also these are locals in Shanghai so they probably have a Shanghainese slant on their Mandarin, hence the divergence from the traditional Beijing mandarin that this white dude probably learnt in class.

Post: #14

Something that I've never understood about tonal languages : how do you vary your tone in speech (as people do, depending on their mood or whatever) without changing the meanings of of the words?

Post: #15

I'm pretty sure the point of the video was to show the funny incongruity of a white guy "educating" the Chinese on their own language, nothing more. The intent was obviously humor, not a desire to display autistic grammar nazi superiority, so I think the guys here criticizing the dude should chill out.

Post: #16

(04-29-2017 01:21 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  Something that I've never understood about tonal languages : how do you vary your tone in speech (as people do, depending on their mood or whatever) without changing the meanings of of the words?

From what I've heard from students in hyper intensive courses is that they have no real need for tones as the word choice displays what they want to convey.

(04-29-2017 01:42 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  I'm pretty sure the point of the video was to show the funny incongruity of a white guy "educating" the Chinese on their own language, nothing more. The intent was obviously humor, not a desire to display autistic grammar nazi superiority, so I think the guys here criticizing the dude should chill out.

You already speak 2 languages right? So you would know about the differences already and can quickly pick up that it was meant to be humorous. I don't reckon the dudes who are of a similar mind to what I said are criticizing him, but discussing why he is assuming he is correct while they are wrong.

Which in a sense is true, he is correct in the sense that he knows the proper way to speak.

I know other dudes here are fluent in Chinese and would be able to confirm if what my opinions were were correct or not. Would you prefer every thread just to be post after post of "hahaha that white dudes so awesome! He's schoolin those chinese on how to speak their own language!"

Post: #17

(04-29-2017 02:07 PM)cascadecombo Wrote:  

(04-29-2017 01:21 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  Something that I've never understood about tonal languages : how do you vary your tone in speech (as people do, depending on their mood or whatever) without changing the meanings of of the words?

From what I've heard from students in hyper intensive courses is that they have no real need for tones as the word choice displays what they want to convey.

But what if you want to convey sarcasm or emphasis or use uptalk at the end of a question?

Post: #18

(04-29-2017 02:58 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  

(04-29-2017 02:07 PM)cascadecombo Wrote:  

(04-29-2017 01:21 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:  Something that I've never understood about tonal languages : how do you vary your tone in speech (as people do, depending on their mood or whatever) without changing the meanings of of the words?

From what I've heard from students in hyper intensive courses is that they have no real need for tones as the word choice displays what they want to convey.

But what if you want to convey sarcasm or emphasis or use uptalk at the end of a question?

Language evolves from need. Sarcasm is not really big in Asia.

Post: #19

(04-29-2017 01:42 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  I'm pretty sure the point of the video was to show the funny incongruity of a white guy "educating" the Chinese on their own language, nothing more. The intent was obviously humor, not a desire to display autistic grammar nazi superiority, so I think the guys here criticizing the dude should chill out.

I thought the white man had a light touch when criticizing the Chinese people. They seemed to be enjoying the game he set up and he didn't get one hostile reaction.

Post: #20

(04-29-2017 01:02 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  The foreigners with the best Chinese are the Jehovah's witnesses, no competition. I had a nice chat with two of them once. They said they started learning conversational Mandarin very early. Absolutely no foreigner accent.

Mormons too.

Post: #21

(04-29-2017 03:28 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

(04-29-2017 01:42 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  I'm pretty sure the point of the video was to show the funny incongruity of a white guy "educating" the Chinese on their own language, nothing more. The intent was obviously humor, not a desire to display autistic grammar nazi superiority, so I think the guys here criticizing the dude should chill out.

I thought the white man had a light touch when criticizing the Chinese people. They seemed to be enjoying the game he set up and he didn't get one hostile reaction.

He was disarming them with his basketball t-shirt

Post: #22

(04-29-2017 11:40 AM)debeguiled Wrote:  The Chinese are pretty polite about having their language corrected by a white devil.

If an Asian dude tried this in a small town near me he would get a bunch of rednecks mumbling things under their breath like "rice burners," and "you people didn't have any trouble finding Pearl Harbor."

And if he didn't shut up, it would get interesting. And involve a hike in the woods.

Except the Chinese are ruder and more racist than most people in the rural or southern US, and rednecks don't actually bury minorities in the woods over a Youtube video.

Post: #23

My biggest takeaway from this video is that logography is an inefficient form of writing. It shouldn't be that easy to confuse native speakers and literates on their own words/phrases. I would think this game/demonstration may be similar to showing English speakers difficult words that are not used so often and asking them to pronounce them? Like "Hey mate, how would you pronunce 'acquiesce'?"

Post: #24

The only thing that makes Chinese a single language and not 50 is the writing system, so they aren't getting rid of it as long as there is still a China, "efficiency" be damned. As for the spoken language the ones who can't speak intelligible Mandarin are all either over 30 or couldn't make it past middle school.

That being said the only people who naturally speak "proper" Mandarin are in the North China Plain and Manchuria. So maybe a fifth of the population?

Post: #25

(04-29-2017 05:41 PM)Lunostrelki Wrote:  The only thing that makes Chinese a single language and not 50 is the writing system, so they aren't getting rid of it as long as there is still a China, "efficiency" be damned. As for the spoken language the ones who can't speak intelligible Mandarin are all either over 30 or couldn't make it past middle school.

That being said the only people who naturally speak "proper" Mandarin are in the North China Plain and Manchuria. So maybe a fifth of the population?

How different are the Chinese dialects? Are we talking like Romance languages, Slavic varieties? Scandinavian?