The following is part 2 of 2 (go back to part 1) of a guest post by Randy Alexander.
More than simple Chinese domestic piracy is at work here, because there’s more to this story. Just before the winter holidays (Dec 2007), I was training some English teachers at a primary school in Jilin City, and opened an English-Chinese dictionary that was sitting on one of the desks (perhaps I was fated to do so), and noticed a big chart on the back endpaper. The dictionary is small, about 10×13x4cm, and is called A NEW POCKET ENGLISH-CHINESE DICTIONARY Revised Edition 新英汉小词典 (xīn yīng hàn xiǎo cídiǎn; new English-Chinese little dictionary), and was published in 1986 by 上海译文出版社 (shànghǎi yìwén chūbǎnshè; Shanghai Translation Publishers). It is typical of things you see in student’s hands in China. The chart on the back endpaper is not so typical. (Click on the chart for a larger version.)
The title of the chart is 英汉译音表 (yīng hàn yìyīn biǎo; English-Chinese transliteration chart). It maps Chinese pronunciation onto English pronunciation.
This is clearly the Rosetta Stone of Chinglish.
Searching the web for 英汉译音表, I found another chart here (similar, but not identical).
English syllables can range in structure from V to CCCVCCCC, where V = vowel, and C = consonant. For the combination CV, you look at the top of the chart and find the C, then look up the V on the left side of the chart. This points to the Chinese character that represents that CV combination. Chinese doesn’t have consonant clusters, so for transliterating a consonant that is followed by another consonant (or that is the last sound in a word), one must use the stand-alone form of that consonant. The stand-alone forms are given in the third row across the top. There are also stand-alone forms for the vowels given in the first Chinese character column on the left.
So for the name everyone’s been talking about lately (Phelps), it can be found this way: the word begins with the CV pair [fɛ] (”Phe”). Look up “f” in the first row (this is by sound, not by letter), and then “e” on the left side, which points to the character 菲 (fēi). The “l” has a consonant after it, so we have to use the stand-alone form, which is given as 尔 (ěr). Then a “p” stand alone form, which is 普 (pǔ), and the final “s”, which is stand-alone because it’s final, 斯 (sī). Put it all together and you have 菲尔普斯 (fēi’ěrpǔsī).
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That’s not so far off from the English pronunciation. But some names are crazy, like the way Chinese people have transliterated “Hawaii”: 夏威夷 (xiàwēiyí).
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It would have made a lot more sense to call it 哈外夷 (hāwàiyí) or something like that.
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This method of using Chinese characters to represent English sounds is not necessarily bad in and of itself; it is possible to design a method that is actually intelligible, but one must keep in mind that while there are sounds that two languages are bound to share, there are also sounds that those two languages don’t share. I often use Chinese characters in my English classes to show that some Chinese sounds are basically the same as some English sounds. One might be able to make a good phrasebook using this method, but one would have to take word accent and sentence accent patterns into consideration, and also carefully look at the way each word joins the next word. I attempted to do just that with the original directions to the washroom (same reporter as the original example):
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The washroom is over there, across the road.
的 沃史入母馊粉儿 贼尔 鹅科绕死 的 肉的
(de wòshǐrùmǔsōufěnr zéi’ěr ékēràosǐ de ròude)
I had to be a little inventive. [də] is found for “the” in some American dialects, so it therefore sounds less foreign than the other alternatives (Chinese has no [ð]). I contracted “washroom is” to “washroom’s” and devoiced the [z] in “’s”. Also I used fourth tone characters for syllables with strong accents, and third tone for unaccented syllables. The processes that are involved in choosing characters this way are extremely complex and could never be simplified enough to be comparable to looking things up in a table.
The bottom line: it’s easier and more effective just to learn the English sounds!
Chinglish doesn’t have to be so Chinglish. Let’s listen to one of the students from the English school I run. When she came to my school, she was eight years old and couldn’t speak any English. She’s been studying for four years and now she’s 12 years old and just about to enter middle school as a fluent English speaker. Here’s how she says it:
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Here’s another; 8 years old, studied for two years (note: these are not coached; I just wrote the sentence down on a slip of paper and they read it, of course understanding the meaning):
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What a relief!
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Comments 11
Just a note on the “crazy” Chinese name for Hawaii…it’s actually not crazy at all. It comes from the Cantonese. 夏 is actually “ha,” 威 is indeed “wai” and 夷 “yi” remains the same. Cantonese has contributed a lot to English loan words and is actually more accurate than Mandarin because it has finals. This includes the familiar 的士 or “deksee”…taxi anyone?
Posted 21 Aug 2008 at 5:46 pm ¶This is a marvelous post, I love it! I have a question about a very common example of Chinglish. Most of my non-English-speaking Chinese friends pronounce “email” as something like “yi1 mai4 er3″. Is there a convention for which three characters should be used to represent this Chinglish word?
Thanks,
Posted 22 Aug 2008 at 3:36 am ¶David
Oh…my…goodness! This is exactly what I was looking for. The fact that it’s gone beyond proper nouns to actual phrases in phrase books is, while I suppose very predictable, still a little disturbing. I guess I have to admit that we’ve got those for English speakers learning Chinese too. I think the Lonely Planet or some travel books like that have common Chinese phrases written in some non-pinyin romanization. Anyway, thanks very much for the article.
And Josh,
Thanks for explaining that Cantonese has a lot to do with wacky sounding Mandarinized names and words. I’ve always wondered where 打的 (da3 di1) for “hail a taxi” came from. Now I know. Is that where 巴士 (ba1shi4) for “bus” comes from too? Does it sound more like “bus” in Cantonese. Is there a dictionary or something I can use to HEAR the Cantonese pronunciation of those characters?
I would be VERY interested in a list of Mandarin words whose characters were originally chosen in Cantonese and are now common in Mandarin. Anyone else want to help me put some pressure on Josh for that?
Posted 23 Aug 2008 at 5:05 pm ¶@David: According to what I’ve been able to find out and verify via Baidu (with hit counts):
伊妹儿-472,000
Posted 24 Aug 2008 at 1:14 am ¶伊梅尔-6,260
义卖哦-733
义卖偶-54
伊麦欧-8
Oops! I violated the constitution! Here are the stats with pinyin added.
伊妹儿 (yīmèi’ér)-472,000
Posted 24 Aug 2008 at 7:08 am ¶伊梅尔 (yīméi’ěr)-6,260
义卖哦 (yìmài’ó)-733
义卖偶 (yìmài’ǒu)-54
伊麦欧 (yīmài’ōu)-8
This post is a wasted read in my opinion. Well, it does tell us something about how English is taught in China and is useful as ethnographic data. But the idea that the Chinese are murdering our language because they are using their own phonetic system to transliterate our language as they begin their studies, is a silly idea. I live in the Middle East now where I teach English, and spent ten years in Asia. Japanese use katakana to represent English words most of the time. Does this send them in the wrong direction at times? Yes. Does it mean Japan’s attempt to learn English is doomed? Hardly, there are people there who now speak very very good English. Americans are constantly using erroneous transcriptions to represent Arabic words. We also say Arabic names wrong constantly and think nothing of it. Consider the name Ali, as in Muhammad Ali. In Arabic the accent is on the first syllable, and sounds in Arabic like the English named Ollie. But do English speakers care when I tell them this? No, they just say “this is how we say it in English.” The same thing happens in japan.
English spelling is so notoriously full of exceptions that learners need a crutch. Believe me, Chinese know how to travel, get outside their country, learn English and overcome the barriers of the early phases of their English education. Our pinyin system, or the one Chinese created for us and the world, is a much better way for us to lean Chinese characters than what the Chinese do with our language. And yes, a better job can be done in teaching the phonetics, the multiple, complicated varying phonetics of English, but these books are just for beginners and for a popular audience. There are lots of good phonetics books out there, like Celce-Murcia’s that are making their way into the TESOL curricula throughout the world. China will come along and is at the point already doing fine.
Posted 12 Sep 2008 at 11:00 pm ¶@Todd — I think you may have missed the humor in the article, and some of the main points. Yes, there are people in Japan who speak good English, and in China too, like the two girls at the end of the article. But they are firmly in the minority. Using Chinese characters to represent English sounds is a deliberate step in the wrong direction. Many Japanese no doubt use katakana to represent English, and I’m sure you can buy phrasebooks like that, but I doubt that you would advocate that practice.
“Muhammed Ollie” just doesn’t have that “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” ring to it. In fact I think it sounds pretty ridiculous. Also, Muhammed Ali pronounced it the way he did (with Ali accented on the second syllable) and it became his name, and that’s quite a different thing from speaking a foreign language incorrectly (especially deliberately incorrectly).
Mainland Chinese can not so easily get out of the country. Mostly they can only get out to study, but they usually have to be exceptional students (with a lot of money) to do that.
Lastly, you’re right that more and more better materials are appearing. And there are more and more conscientious and knowledgeable teachers. But there is still a huge tradition of teaching Chinglish that is almost unstoppable. Most (by far) of the local teachers teaching English in Chinese public schools cannot communicate in English. The students follow their horrible pronunciation and develop habits that are very hard to break. I’ve made it my life’s work to do all I can to change that, by writing textbooks, training teachers, meeting (and pleading) with education officials, and everything else I can think of, but it’s no party; and China is certainly not at this point “already doing fine” with regards to how English is being taught.
Posted 14 Sep 2008 at 8:05 am ¶Albert:
One phenomenon that comes to mind is the coining of Chinese names for foreign companies or consumer products. It is not uncommon for foreign brands in China to have Cantonese-inspired Chinese names, especially when it comes to brands that existed in Hong Kong long before they were introduced to Mainland China.
The hotel chain Hyatt (凯悦 – hoi2 yuet6) is a good example.
I’m pretty sure McDonald’s (麦当劳 – mak6 dong1 lou4) also belongs in this category; the Cantonese pronunciation fits the English very well, and there were, as far as I know, McDonald’s restaurants in Hong Kong already before Mao died.
Possibly Pizza Hut also fits the bill (必胜客 – bit1 sing3 haak3).
An even more obvious example is the Hong Kong-based drugstore chain Watsons (屈臣氏) which also operates outlets in Mainland China. 屈臣氏 is pronounced wat1 san4 si6 in Cantonese, consistent with the English name of the store. The Mandarin pronunciation qu1 chen2 shi4, on the other hand, bears virtually no resemblance to the English name.
Posted 08 Oct 2008 at 3:06 pm ¶Jens,
That’s most illuminating indeed! Maybe I should learn some Cantonese. Does anyone know of a good pronunciation guide (with audio) for that?
Posted 11 Oct 2008 at 3:13 am ¶Just add to what Josh explained. Besides the Cantonese translation, there is another important source of translation, i.e. the Hokkien (Mandarin: Min3 Nan2 Yu2 闽南语). Because of the early contact with the Western world, Hokkien speaking people from China also translated many Western Names that, from the Mandarin perspective, sound wacky, too. Typical examples are like Mobile (美孚, mei3 fu2) where by Hokkien pronunciation 孚 starts with the consonant b, rather than f, as in Mandarin. And Marlboro(万宝路，wan4 bao3 lu4). All the discrepancies in pronunciation stem from the fact that all Chinese dialects are evolved from the common ancient Chinese by different directions. The ancient Chinese had a quite different outlooking in the phonetic system. Ancient Chinese carried consonant stops p, t, and k; it had three nasal endings n, ng, and m. Very early ancient Chinese did not have the labial-dental frictives like f and v. The phonetic evolution of ancient chinese among dialects resulted in different degrees of conservation, the most conservative one being Hokkien, which has branched out from the main group in around 300 BC and remained barely changed since then. Interestingly, the official language of China, the Mandarin, in many aspects, is the most radically changed one. Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese have borrowed a lot of Chinese words in history, and these words were pronounciated the way when they were borrowed and therefore provide another important evidence for the reconstruction of ancient Chinese phonetic system.
Because the reasons mentioned above, whenever those seemingly wacky translations are found, it ’s probably due to the non-Mandarin based translation.
Posted 16 Jan 2009 at 1:16 pm ¶It’s a lot of fun to get non-English speaking Chinese friends to read a rude English sentence written in Chinese characters. It’s also mean though
Posted 25 Mar 2009 at 2:54 am ¶爱 来克 土 离克 与儿 __（you fill in the blank) is one example
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[...] It would be interesting to see this guide adapted for migrants who speak languages other than Spanish. Considering that the US has a large Chinese-speaking immigrant community, Chinese may be a good place to start. In August, Beijing Sounds featured a 1993 English phrasebook for Mandarin speakers published in China. The phrasebook transliterated English sentences into Chinese characters; theoretically, a Standard Mandarin speaker would be able to produce fairly understandable English by saying the nonsensical strings of characters printed in the book. The guest blogger invited a TV announcer to read the phrases; the book clearly did not accomplish its goal, as the sentences were incomprehensible. He then shows that careful transliteration can make such a phrasebook viable. [...]
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