Beijing Sounds — 北京的声儿

On Mandarin learning challenges, the definition of language, and the best taxi-driver critique of hànzì ever recorded.

You’ll be forgiven if you missed the pins-and-needles press conference of foreign minister (wàijiāobùzhǎng, 外交部长) Yáng Jiéchí 杨洁篪 a couple of weeks ago (hat tip to Joel Martinsen at Danwei). Read the rest of this entry »

Regarding neighborhood enmity, L=N, and other hútòng realities.

Reality is never quite what you think it is, let alone the way you relate it to others. To tell a story you have to simplify, abstract, highlight and gloss over, of course. That’s the nature of storytelling. Trouble is, a lot of times what you end up with is wishful thinking, platitudes & nostalgia — an idealized reality that isn’t real at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Caution: Not a post to be read aloud among small children or grandmothers

Readers & commenters have been more diligent than your haplessly hard-working correspondent recently. There’s some great dialog about how L and N, or P, F & H blend together in different languages. Read the rest of this entry »

Can’t resist the French reference in this NYT opinion piece, Medvedev. Mehd-V(y)EHD-yehf. Whatever, (hat tip to Language Hat) that parallels the Beijing Sounds discussion on English’s Beizzhing. Revealing quote:

One of the ways we compensate for the difficulty of foreign names is by adopting our own way of saying them. I once worked with an editor who spoke pretty good French, but used only the feminine article “la,” never “le.” Why, I finally asked? “Oh, it sounds SO much more French that way,” he drawled.

Vindication for Beizzhing: French is the universal “foreign” accent.

Now I know what you Bay-Jing purists (e.g. Graham, who has a Bay-Jing post at the Linguism blog) are gonna say: “But Bay-Jing is easy for native English speakers! Why can’t we just insist on it?”

That misses the point. Bay-Jing is easy, too easy. Like “la” in French, it just doesn’t sound foreign enough!

A sound you almost certainly will get to hear in Beijing someday, if you’re so fortunate, is the sound of Lǐ Chuányùn 李传韵 fiddling. The Qingdao native is a world phenomenon and the recipient of a loan instrument from the Stradivari society. What you won’t hear from Beijingers, though, is his particular flavor of Mandarin. Read the rest of this entry »

You know it’s bad for your hypertension to go prescriptivist on place names — “It’s Bay-Jing, you dolt, not Beizzhing!” But did you know there are even better reasons to take a chill? Here are the top 3 arguments for not giving in to the correctionist impulse: Read the rest of this entry »