Public figures the world over are known to cite ancient Chinese wisdom when making their case – US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy recently cited Confucius in the ruling legalizing gay marriage there, while then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton used a Chinese proverb from “The Art of War” during one visit to China. But Chinese humor, often derived from its vivid imagery, is usually left in the vernacular. The following are seven Chinese idioms which aren’t commonly used in English — yet — but should be, on topics ranging from infidelity to snobbery.

1. 脚踏两条船 (jiǎo tà liǎng tiáo chuán) “To stand with one’s feet on two different boats” – This is the Chinese phrase for someone who is in relationships with, or leading on, two different people at the same time. The closest idiomatic expression might be “two-timing,” but it lacks in imagery. It’s much easier to visualize some chump trying his hardest to balance with one foot in a canoe and another in a fishing boat before falling, some minutes later, into the icy lake of karma.
2. 睡得像死猪一样 (shuì de xiàng sǐ zhū yīyàng) “To sleep like dead pig” – A clear winner over its closest English equivalents, “to sleep like a log” and “to sleep like a rock.” The pig is dead. Don’t bother setting an alarm clock or calling it seven times to ask “Why are you late for the 10:00 am sales meeting??!?”
3. 有奶便是娘 (yǒu nǎi biàn shì niáng) “Whoever has milk is mom” – Opportunism, anyone? To my knowledge, there is no similar English idiom describing the attitude of shameless benefit-seeking in which the subject is willing to do anything for a Klondike bar, so to speak.
4. 一粒老鼠屎坏了一锅汤 (yī lì lǎo shǔ shǐ huài le yīguō tāng) “One piece of mouse shit spoiled a pot of soup” – This is the Chinese equivalent of “one bad apple can spoil the bunch.” Other variants of the saying have the mouse shit spoiling porridge instead – my guess is it doesn’t improve the flavor or nutritional value of either.
5. 挂羊头卖狗肉 (guà yang tóu mài gǒu ròu) “To hang up a sheep’s head but sell dog meat” – A slightly sneakier version of the “bait and switch.” You have to hand it to this culinary twist on “false advertising.”
6. 狗屎运 (gǒu shǐ yùn) Literally “dog-shit luck” – this phrase actually describes a great, not terrible, turn of events. This is a throwback to the days when, in rural China, people used excrement for fertilizer and there was not enough supply to meet demand. Dog shit could be sold for cold hard cash or used to grow crops, and either way, accidentally stepping in it was a source of joy, not sorrow.
7. 掉书袋 (diào shū dài) “Drop a sack of books” – To embellish one’s writing or speech with erudite references in order to seem smarter. The person engaged in this action probably thinks that his allusions to other authors are carefully contrived, but they’re more likely to be perceived as clunky and awkward – like an actual sack of books. This is also perhaps the best phrase to wrap up this listicle, lest readers be tempted to show off their knowledge of Chinese dog-shit idioms at the next cocktail party they attend.

The post Dog-shit Luck and 6 Other Chinese Idioms We Should Start Using in English appeared first on The Nanfang.

More wealthy immigrants from mainland China means overseas communities are adjusting to accommodate Putonghua. For proof, one doesn’t have to look any further than the establishment of Confucius Institutes scattered across the globe that promote Putonghua.

The superiority of Putonghua is even apparent in the media. While Chinese actors previously said lines in Cantonese before getting into a kung-fu fight, they now speak Putonghua as seen on Netflix’s Daredevil series. Even flashback scenes from Orange is the New Black show Chinese immigrants in 1980s New York City speaking Putonghua, even though it would have been in Cantonese at the time.

This is all too much for the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, which has had enough. For the first time this September, the Chinese language department is going to offer courses in Cantonese despite all arguments to the contrary.

UBC has turned down four proposals from the Confucius Institute to develop its curriculum, and it was able to do it by accepting a CAD$2 million ($1.5 million) grant from a pair of Hong Kong philanthropists. “When a university can reject money, it’s a subtle form of push back to an overbearing culture,” said Ross King, head of UBC’s Asian-studies program.

Some people think that Cantonese simply does not have a chance against the rise of Putonghua, which is widely understood by a vast majority of China’s 1.3 billion people. However, language is also a way to experience the world through the lens of a particular culture. It’s through Cantonese that we have been blessed with a number of cultural gems that can’t be counterfeited: Cantopop, TVB, Stephen Chow comedic patter, and heroic bloodshed movies among other things.

Of course, you can translate these things into whichever language you’d like. But as Cantonese speakers present and future will know, you’re missing out on a unique way of experiencing the world that other languages can’t replicate, no matter how popular they are.

The post Canadian University Battles Mandarin Domination with Course in Cantonese appeared first on The Nanfang.

First an article on Hacking Chinese came to my mind: You might be too lazy to learn Chinese, but you’re not too old. Olle reminds as that even though it’s easier for children to master the pronunciation of a new language , we adults are much smarter and thus are much better at learning. What we should learn from kids though is that they don’t give up and they aren’t afraid to make mistakes.

We adults often expect results way too quickly and get frustrated when we don’t learn a new skill right away. Remember that learning anything new takes time and effort, so does Chinese, and don’t be afraid to make lots of mistakes along the way.

Speaking of confidence, a blog post from Sinoplice, Confidence and Tones, reminds us how important it is to be confident in your studies. The perfect balance is with having the correct information (knowing the correct pronunciation) and being confident enough to open your mouth and say those words out loud. Children aren’t afraid to speak up so we should definitely learn from them!

I didn’t learn the Chinese pronunciation well when I started. Our teacher just made us listen and repeat after a CD recoding for hours and hours, without explaining why we were learning this way. She didn’t explain where and how all these new sounds should be pronounced in our mouths. She didn’t correct our tones enough and let us get away with bad pronunciation.

When I came to China I noticed that it could take me 5 minutes to try to order yì bēi shŭi one glass of water just because my pronunciation was so terrible. During the years I’ve noticed plenty of foreigners complaining how the Chinese don’t understand their Chinese, I felt the same way at first. But then I realized that it’s my fault, my pronunciation just wasn’t good enough to allow the listener to easily understand me.

Learning Chinese pronunciation is tricky, it takes lots of time and effort, but the good news are, that after you master it (or become good enough), learning Chinese becomes much easier. At first it may seem like that you never learn those difficult initials like j, q, x or zh, ch, sh, but that’s not true. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, study hard and you will notice how native speakers start to understand you.

It may take a while to get that first feeling of accomplishment, but trust me, it feels great! One day you realize the taxi drive understood where you were going, the waitress got your order right and you just said your very first spontaneous Chinese sentence without translating it first in your head.

John from Sinoplice describes learning Chinese in 5 stages, starting from “Ching-chong-ching”. At this first stage Chinese seems something completely alien to you. How could these sounds be learned? And how is it even possible to recognize the different tones, do they even matter? After learning Chinese for a while, with a good teacher, a learner will gradually realize that Chinese is a language just like any other language (Stage 2). You start to understand that for the Chinese the difference between mā with a first tone and mà with a fourth tone is as big as the difference between A and B letters is for us.

I wish that my students don’t make the same mistakes as I did and think the tones or correct pronunciation doesn’t matter. Yes, Chinese will understand your Xièxie (thank you) and fāpiào (invoice) no matter how poorly you utter them, just because these are the two words they are used to hearing from a foreigner’s mouth. But try something else and you find yourself having communication trouble.

We also have difficulties with non-native speakers of our own languages if their pronunciation is way off, and it’s the same with Chinese. English and Chinese just happen to be quite different languages so it takes a bit more effort to nail the pronunciation. So let’s make it easier for us and for the listener and learn those new sounds. Just like a kid, don’t be afraid to make mistakes!

Now after learning Chinese for more than six years I finally understand how valuable it is to listen to the advice or advanced learners like Olle from Hacking Chinese and John from Sinoplice. They have gone through the journey, made the mistakes and are sharing their wisdom on how to avoid those mistakes ourselves.

As a final word for this not so coherent blog post, I would like to say that don’t give up. No matter how hard it might seem in the beginning, you can learn to speak Chinese. No matter if it’s your first or fifth foreign language, you are never too old to learn new things. Advance on your own speed, but take an advantage of the tips of other learners.

Good luck! Study hard!

The post You’re Never Too Old to Learn Chinese, But It’s Going to Take Some Work appeared first on The Nanfang.

As a Chinese learner for more than six years and a Chinese teacher for a year, I’m extremely eagerly awaiting this new dictionary, backed with years of research, that will explain Chinese characters.

Co-founder Ash Henson explains that the roots of the project go back to 1993, when he started learning the language. In 2005 he moved to Taiwan to pursue his passion and enroll in a PhD program for teaching Chinese as a second language, and later continued his research in the Chinese department.

Ash met Christian Schmidt and John Renfroe, both equally crazy about the world of hanzi. After years of research they decided to re-package their academic knowledge into a dictionary that would be easy enough for beginners to use as well.

So how does Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters help learners to master characters?

It helps us to understand the characters as a system, how they actually work. The main framework for understanding characters are the four types of functional components that are introduced in the dictionary. These are the building blocks of characters and Outlier dictionary shows us the building blocks that a particular character is composed of.

For example, have you ever wondered why the character for beautiful 美 includes a sheep 羊 on top? Did the ancient Chinese regard sheep as beautiful animals? The Outlier dictionary explains that 羊 here is actually an empty component; it used to be a headdress made of feathers. So the real story behind 美 is that it depicts a person wearing a headdress, thus making it beautiful.

What is even better is that the new dictionary will be published on Pleco, which is already the most widely used Chinese dictionary app for learners. Pleco includes both free and paid dictionaries that you can download according to your own needs, and next year Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters will be one of them!

To make the dream come true, the Outlier team started a Kickstarter campaign that has already reached 63 percent of their goal. If the goal of $75,000 is reached by June 12th, the dictionary will be published in the first quarter of 2016.

Me and many other Chinese learners and teachers are super excited of this project and can’t wait to get our hands on it!

For more information check out https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnrenfroe/outlier-dictionary-of-chinese-characters

The post Innovative New Chinese Dictionary Generating Buzz from Kickstarter Campaign appeared first on The Nanfang.

A recent article by the People’s Daily reported that the practice of inserting English words into Chinese speech is starting to receive a backlash from the public. Called jiazati (夹杂体 jiāzá tǐ, or “mixed system”), it’s a way of speaking among Chinese that conveys professionalism and of having a higher pedigree. Here’s an example originating from a corporate workplace that was quoted in the article:

这个project的schedule有些问题, cost偏高。目前我们没法confirm手上的resource能完全take得了

Did you get that? In English, that quote reads as “There are some issues with the project’s schedule, the cost is a bit high. At present we cannot confirm that we have the full resources in hand.”

Here’s another:

遇到tough question应该怎样handle?

In English, that Chinese speaker is saying, “When encountering a tough question, how do you handle it?” Even a non-Chinese reader can see that knowledge of two languages is required in order to understand what this sentence means. Some people don’t like it one bit.

Sichuan Normal University professor Miao Xiaowu said that Chinese should insist on pure forms of spoken Chinese without the use of foreign words. Professor Miao insists that “pure Chinese” should be used during formal occasions or else “it will harm Chinese traditions and affect the cultural heritage of the Chinese language.”

Miao is critical of Chinese who use English words as the subjects, objects, and/or verbs of their sentences, saying that “People believe that mixing languages makes them look more stylish and like they have good taste. ” However, he asserts, this shows they have no confidence in their own culture as this idea is superficial at best.

But despite Miao’s protests in favor of to keep the Chinese language “pure”, the use of English within the construct of Chinese language has been going on for a long time – and is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

Even before jiazati came to prominence in the upper-echelon of the mainland Chinese business world, the Chinese language has come under the influence of English through the former British colony of Hong Kong.  Hong Kongers have long thrived on the use of peppering their Cantonese with English, something done casually among friends and not necessarily to impress one’s peers in the office. Hong Kong films, which are popular among non-Cantonese-speaking mainlanders, have also been a transmission vector for this linguistic miscegenation.

In the 1992 cult favourite Hard Boiled, Tony Leung’s character is described by a Chinese forensic detective as “好professional” (“Very professional”) after performing a hit on a mob rival in a library when he hid a gun inside a book. In Naked Killer, another 1992 cult film, Chingmy Yau’s character told Simon Yam that the most romantic thing she wanted was a “candlelight dinner”, switching mid-sentence to English.

The influence of Hong Kong aside, mainland China has long incorporated English into its language and culture, something so ingrained that it would be difficult to maintain where the “purity” of Chinese language even begins in modern times.

Even though the corporate example features six English words crammed into two sentences, Chinese have long employed the practice of shoehorning English words into Chinese speech, just at a less frantic pace. Example of this include “你out了” (“You have fallen behind on current trends”)，”很high” (“very excited/happy”, and not associated with the English equivalent), and “hold不住” (“can’t take it anymore”), which originated from a Taiwanese TV show from several years ago. These examples all use short and simple English words and are easy enough to understand by those who haven’t learned English. Unlike the use of jiazati, these phrases are all dependent on context and aren’t used interchangeably in other grammatic structures.

Also in line with this simplicity is the use of English acronyms in Chinese speech. The big difference with which Chinese society uses them terms is that these acronyms don’t necessarily represent anything, and even if they did, don’t hold any significance in Chinese. Commonly used English acronyms used in China include KTV (karaoke), VCR (video clip), and PK (used the same way as “vs”; possibly originating from the online gaming term “player killer”).

China opened its doors to the world after US President Nixon’s visit to China in the 70’s, and with it came an official need for Chinese names for a world filled with proper nouns including people and place names. The default method for finding a way to give Chinese names to things in different languages was to transliterate the English name for this into a Chinese pinyin equivalent. This became is a widespread practice that only excludes places near to China that historically-used names, like those for North Korea or Thailand. The result has been the Chinese names of foreign things to overwhelmingly have an “English accent”.

And Chinese have exceeded at it. Many words used in the Chinese language is the English transliteration, and are often more popularly used than its Chinese “pure” version. A “jacket” in Chinese is “夹克” (jiákè), a word that doesn’t have a “pure Chinese” version. Even though a microphone can be called a 话筒 (literally means “speech tube”), you’re just as liable to hear it called by its English-sounding equivalent 麦克风 (màikèfēng), a word that will leave you scratching your head if you try to understand by Chinese semantics alone.

Before English crept into Chinese speech, it has been infiltrating Chinese culture via T-shirts and the names of Chinese retail stores. When Chinese people want to stand out in a crowd, they often give themselves English names that are simple and easy enough to be adopted by Chinese speakers of all varieties, often regardless of how they may sound to native English speakers.

And against the criticism that the Chinese language should remain “pure” stands the examples of words that have absolutely no specific Chinese equivalent. Words used by Chinese exclusively in English include iPhone, duang, and GIF.

Looking through all of this, it appears that English has long been a part of Chinese culture. For its part, the original article has this to say about the issue:

Language is a tool for communication and media, but it is also an important part of national culture.

English teachers in China have often heard from their students how “language is a tool”, something heard when explaining why they want to study English. But as any language teacher will tell you, learning a language is much more that just a tool for communication, but a way to experience and appreciate the world. Like art or music, language is way to see the world from a different perspective.

After several generations of English students, even if China hasn’t produced legions of fluent English speakers, it has produced many people who think in English, or at the very least, in fragmented English.

But maybe the spread of English isn’t the most pressing threat to the proliferation of the Chinese language. After all, many young Chinese can’t remember how to write out certain Chinese characters by hand because they only write Chinese using keyboards on computers and phones.

Related:

• Chinese Meme “No Zuo No Die” Laughs in the Face of Reason
• Urban Dictionary Chinglish Entries “Applauded” by Chinese Media
• Chinese slang ‘diaosi’ causing social instability: official
• These Are The Top 10 New Online Pop-Culture Memes in China

The post English Cited as Threat to “Purity” of Chinese Language appeared first on The Nanfang.

China loves slogans. There’s Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents and Hu Jintao’s Harmonious Society. Aside from each leader marking their territory with some vague, hard-to-understand theories, there is no shortage of other political buzzwords that fall in and out of fashion in China.

Since the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress wrapped up in March, the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau has been busy taking the key words and phrases used during the conferences and putting them into English, thus spreading socialist thought with Chinese characteristics well beyond China’s borders.

The list is a mix of new, old, and a grab bag of oddities. Some of the translations will be very familiar with English readers, like “tough issue” and “tough stance”. Other phrases borrow established phrases from Western culture like “twin engine” and “dual objective” while political jargon is also present in the phases “maintain strategic focus” and “maintain sustainable economic growth”.

There are also some brand new inclusions that sound like throwbacks to earlier Chinese laws with astute names like “Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy” and “Two Centenary Goals”.

The “new normal” is already a buzzword that has gotten a lot of mileage lately, but the list also includes some phrases that don’t sound as clear in English as they do in Chinese. A “tiger in the road” is a way to describe a political bottleneck, joining other Chinese political imagery like “catching tigers and flies” and “paper tiger”. The terms “maker” and “maker space” appear to be a little under-translated, something that doesn’t get clarified with the example provided: “We have seen great numbers of makers giving expression to their talents.”

The list also includes phrases like, “a sound and stable framework for major-country relations,” “develop a tightly woven and sturdy safety net” and “allow more financial resources to be channeled into the real economy”.

The only sentence included in the list – “Power is not to be used arbitrarily” – is notable because of its significance. It was already a hot topic at the two meetings.

One of the hottest words used on the internet and in society last year was 任性 (rènxìng), meaning “willful” or “unrestrained”, a word that has been used to negatively describe people who use money to do whatever they want. On March 2, official spokesperson Lu Xinhua (seen in photo at top) sparked online buzz for translating 任性 at a press conference with the word “capricious”, a term often associated in Western culture with spoiled children who don’t get their way.

Therefore, based upon official Chinese government language, another way to say this last sentence in English would be “Power is not to be used capriciously.”

You can read the full list of political buzzwords and their Chinese terms here, as well as their translations in Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Arabic.

The post Forget “Harmonious Society”, Impress Your Friends With “Four Comprehensives” And Other New Political Buzzwords appeared first on The Nanfang.

The official language of aviation is English to avoid any problems, but three pilots from Southeast Asia-based airlines say it’s not happening enough in the Chinese capital. Speaking on the condition on anonymity, the pilots admitted they became confused when different air traffic controllers changed the runways scheduled for landing in Chinese. The pilots stressed that all pilots and air traffic controllers should speak a common language so they can share common situational awareness, especially in cases of emergency.

An official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China named Li Mao said the practice of using English to communicate with foreign airline pilots and Mandarin for Chinese pilots has been a long-standing one. He did not elaborate further.

The post Pilots Complain Beijing Air Traffic Control Using Mandarin appeared first on The Nanfang.

Zhou Youguang, image courtesy of Baidu

Born in Changzhou, Zhou studied in Japan and worked as an economist in New York City before returning to Shanghai when the People’s Republic was established. In 1955, the Communist Party placed Zhou at the head of a linguistic reform committee to increase literacy. Zhou’s committee was charged with developing a romanization to represent the pronunciation of Chinese characters. Pinyin was made the official romanization in 1958.

Since turning 100, Zhou has published ten books, some of which are banned in China as he is now a critic of the government. As recently as October 2011, he gave an interview to NPR in which he lamented the slowness of political progress in China.

For his birthday, friends and disciples spoke to Xinhua to explain the importance of Zhou’s work and its influence on their own.

Zhang Sengen of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the news portal: “Zhou career broadly falls into three stages. There is his early life in which he worked abroad while giving support to the War of Resistance against Japan and his subsequent return to China to serve as a professor of Economics; then he turned to Linguistics and Philology where he worked for three solid years to establish pinyin and helped with the modernization and internationalization of Chinese characters; and since he turned 85 he has mostly been a cultural and social critic who writes for the layman.

Zhang describes Zhou as a model intellectual, a free thinker and independent personality. “He doesn’t shy away from debate and isn’t afraid to be wrong,” said Zhang.

Jie Xizhang, a cultural commentator, describes Zhou as a genial personality and lively conversationalist. “Since retiring, Zhou has focused a lot on the development and fate of society. Despite being undeceived about the problems we have, he stays optimistic,” Jie told Xinhua.

Jie points out how Zhou, an internationalist, tries to downplay China’s exceptionality and sees China as just another part of the world. “Through the invention of Pinyin, Zhou has helped China become part of the world,” said Jie.

The post “God Forgot About Me”: Father of Pinyin Turns 109 appeared first on The Nanfang.

Juan and Fabio are among the foreign experts who arrived in China and are loving it, as seen in this March 2008 news photo.

Common sense may have told us this, but we finally have confirmation from the Chinese government: the typical expat in China is male, doesn’t speak Chinese, and loves his adopted country.

The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs sent a questionnaire to expats as part of its study on the living environment for expatriate workers. It found China is already among the world’s top destinations for expatriate workers and by far the most lucrative, but it still needs “to do better to hire and keep professional expats”, reported China Daily.

More than 2,000 people responded to the survey. It showed 74 percent of expats are male, and an astounding 73 percent could barely understand simple Chinese.

The study outlined a number of problems that concerned foreigners, such as medical and social insurance issues, as well as the educational needs of their children and the application process for work visas.

Chinese authorities have tried to make the work visa application process easier for expats, and even announced reforms to China’s rarely-seen green card program. In 2012, only 0.2 percent of China’s 633,000 expats held a green card.

The report failed to mention air pollution, an issue so important to some expat workers that Western companies are willing to pay “hazard pay” bonuses to those willing to work in China’s big polluted cities.

When asked what conditions could be improved for expats, the study found that 56.9 percent of respondents want better compensation, while many of their employers reportedly are unable to meet those demands.

Whatever their salary, expats are generally very happy to be in China. Over 70 percent of professional expat workers in China reported being very satisfied with their lives, and 75 percent of employers reported being similarly satisfied with these foreign expats, even if they are mostly males who don’t speak the language.

Related:

• 25% of Expats in China Make Over US$300,000 a Year
  
• Coke Now Paying Expat Staff Extra To Deal With China’s Air Pollution
• Foreigners Who Want To Work In Beijing Must Now Meet These Requirements
• CCTV Investigates Sketchy English Teaching Industry in China
• Getting a Chinese Green Card Will Now Be Easier Than Ever

[h/t the Beijinger]

Photo: FY News, dahe

The post China’s Typical Expat: Male, Doesn’t Speak Chinese, and Loves It Here appeared first on The Nanfang.

The founder and CEO of Facebook spoke exclusively in Putonghua at a sit-down interview in front of Tsinghua students. For 29 minutes, Zuckerberg spoke fluent Chinese and smoothly answered questions despite having a hard English accent and with difficultly getting his tones correct.

Zuckerberg received a round of applause by beginning the talk with “大家好” (hello, everybody), and continued to astound the awestruck crowd by continuing in Chinese. The only English spoken during the talk was by the host when he introduced Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg announced some of his plans, such as the hiring of about 20 Chinese nationals to work abroad, something that has happened annually for awhile. But Zuckerberg usually fielded much simpler questions, all pertaining to China.

When answering “Why did you learn Chinese?”, Zuckerberg said that his wife Priscilla Chan is Chinese, a statement that drew a large round of applause from the audience. He explained that her grandmother only speaks Chinese, and he wanted a way to converse with her.

Besides saying he wanted to learn more about Chinese culture, Zuckerberg said that Chinese is a difficult language to learn, and that he wanted a challenge. To this, the host said, “Today, let’s all challenge Mark.”

Zuckerberg had earlier met Chen Jining, the principal of Tsinghua, had and held talks about cultivating talent and opportunities to work together. Zuckerberg has agreed to serve as an advisor at Tsinghua.

Zuckerberg has been learning Putonghua since at least 2010.

Here is video so you can hear Zuckerberg’s Putonghua for yourself:

Photos: screencaps from QQ

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