Beijing Sounds — 北京的声儿

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 »

Thanks to S.H.E. we Zhonglish-speakers now apparently have our own hit song, complete with rap lite and formulaic key change in the last refrain. Hat tip to Granite Studio for the reference to the song as it was performed for the new year.

Key phrase:

全世界都在学中国话
quán shìjiè dōu zài xué zhōngguóhuà
The whole world is learning Chinese

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The first in a series. Part 1 — Tones

There’s really nothing fair about growing up as a native English speaker. The world wants to learn your language, no credit to you. But you, personally, get to reap all the benefits. You are invited to go to exotic places like oh, say, Latvia after you graduate from college. In the village of Vandzene, amidst the rolling hills and plentiful lakes of the Talsi region of Kurzeme, you get to “teach” English, although you have no teaching skills in anything, least of all English. You’re treated like a visiting dignitary, with clandestinely expedited access to everything. They’ve also pulled strings to pay you at the highest end of local wages, ironic in that, despite being grossly unfair to long-suffering, hard-working local teachers, it’s not enough to pay off an hour’s worth of interest on your student loans.

And BEST OF ALL, when your Latvian language skills reach the level of a butane-huffing 13-year-old who just got his teeth knocked out in a fight, you are paraded before the local media and adulated in the manner of a minor deity.

Not to single out Vandzene, really. The same story gets played out in Beijing, albeit with Chinese characteristics.

Thus today we present: Zhonglish! Revenge for every native Mandarin speaker and, by extension, for every non-native speaker of English around the world who has been blankly stared at, mocked, ignored, ostracized, discounted, looked down upon, trifled with, or made a fool of as they attempted legitimate communication in English.

(For the record, “hellooooooo” thrown in the direction of aforeign face does not fall under the category of “legitimate communication”)

Oh yeah, the post also includes some reasonably constructive analysis of the “All right, I know I sound like a foreigner speaking Mandarin, but why?” problem.

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