On good dictionaries, good bachelor dishes, the free dinner offer
The ABC dictionary is wrong. At least the version on my Pleco dictionary. At least according to Yuèmǔ U. (aka Grandma). At least the entry on spinach, which would have us pronounce bōcài rather than grandma’s very clear rising tone on the first syllable: bócài.
Here, listen for yourself. I stitched together the three times she says the word in the longer clip below.
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Is it just idiolect variation, or did ABC get it wrong?
Either way I love ABC, and all the bluster is really just praising with faint damnation because the ABC dictionary, with its basis in pinyin, is indispensable around the Beijing Sounds studios, especially in combination with the technology of the absolutely superb Pleco dictionary (which offers the ABC, the Oxford dictionary, and others) that resides on my PDA. I have been meaning for months to give Pleco some real estate on Beijing Sounds so that through the enormous volume of traffic they might enjoy at least a small fraction of the comforts of financial security that this enterprise has afforded us here at the studios. They deserve every bit of it not just because they have good technology but because every interaction I have with them (e.g. reinstalling the dictionary on a new PDA after my old one met its maker at the hands of a tile floor) reinforces my belief in their fundamental devotion to customers.
Can’t afford a Pleco? Sell the family jewels and your firstborn and get one. ‘Nuf said.
So back to bachelorhood, which is still the state of affairs at the makeshift Beijing Sounds studios here in Minnesota. As with the last recipe installment, the question continues to arise a couple of times a day: what to eat? The U. always has suggestions, and you can bet they don’t involve opening a can or looking over the takeout menus. How about: eggs with spinach?
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炒那白菜 菠菜叶儿. 拿鸡蛋
Chǎo nèi báicài [ye] bócài yèr. Ná jīdàn.
Fry the cabbage [uh] the spinach leaves. Take the eggs.一炒往里头放一点儿菠菜
Yī chǎo wǎng lǐtou fàng yīdiǎnr bócài
Once they’re fried put in a bit of spinach.然后就放一点儿盐就成。别的什么都不用放
Ránhou jiù fàng yīdiǎnr yán jiù chéng. Biéde shénme dōu bùyòng fàng
Then put in just a bit of salt is good enough. You don’t need to put in anything else.先炒鸡蛋啊。把鸡蛋成出来 [not entirely sure on this]
Xiān chǎo jīdàn a. Bǎ jīdàn chéng chūlai.
First fry the eggs. Then take out the eggs.然后呢就那个你就把菠菜一炒把鸡蛋…
Ránhòu ne jiù nèige nǐ jiù bǎ bócài yī chǎo bǎ jīdàn…
Then you just take the — just put the spinach just fry it and put the egg…往里头一搀，放一点儿盐，一出来就成。不用放别的
wǎng lǐtou yī chān, fàng yī diǎnr yán, yī chūlai jiù chéng. Bùyòng fàng biéde.
in and stir, put in a little salt, just take it out and done. No need to put in anything else.
一点儿北京话
It is Beijing Sounds, so you can’t get away without a little bit of rolled tongue/Beijing-R/érhuàyīn. As I keep transcribing yīdiǎnr (一点儿 = “a little bit” said the Beijing way), it’s worth noting that I don’t recall the professor of Yuèmǔ U., a lifelong Beijinger, ever uttering that pǔtōnghuà standard, “yīdiǎndiǎn” (一点点 = a little bit). And of course she says bócài yèr (菠菜叶儿) instead of bócài yèzi or something of the sort. As always, I’m wondering how far this extends outside Beijing.
On the whole bócài vs. bōcài thing, I don’t mean to get sucked into another vegetable discussion, but they just keep coming up. In the last recipe episode, it was the two words for broccoli (lǜcàihuār / 绿菜花儿 vs. xīlánhuār / 西兰花儿）. The comment from Chris seemed to establish pretty unequivocally that both are legit although xīlánhuār is probably more formal. For bócài, all you need to do is to print out the characters, get your favorite Mandarin speaker to blurt it out, then leave a comment about what you hear.
What about the Zhei/Nei thing, then? In the last recipe I got kind of carried away with it. Trouble is: it’s still eating me. In the comments last time, Randy offered some good rules that seem to apply pretty well to what we hear in this fine capital. But out of curiosity about the world beyond, I’m going to keep asking for more info until someone gives in and makes some recordings from outside Beijing. What’s it gonna take? Stock in BJS? Hey, that’s worth more than AIG tomorrow anyway. But how about just dinner? To quote from the previous fee dinner offer:
As you can hear in the recording, the Yuèmǔ U Beijing campus adheres pretty closely to the hútòngr pronunciation of “zhèi, nèi” (这，那 = this, that) instead of “zhè, nà” (which is the pǔtōnghuà standard as far as I know, although both spellings do appear to work in the IME that I’m using). At the Beijing Sounds Studios we’ve always been interested in finding a map of how far zhèi/nèi extends beyond the capital. So as part of our Frequent Reader Award Program (FRAP), a free hand-crafted shrimp dinner, cooked in the kitchenette outside the Beijing Sounds studio, is being offered to anyone who can find an authoritative source.
Barring that, if you feel inspired, take a minute to record some local speech wherever you are in Mandarin Country, count up the zhèi/nèi vs. zhè/nà and send it all in (bjshengr -at- gmail -dot- com). Just make sure you get some background on where the speaker grew up. If I can make any sense of it, I’ll post the whole muddle as a starting hypothesis.
Let me know what you’ve got, and send in those blurry* egg-with-spinach pics!
– syz
*hey, it’s the world’s worst cook and photographer in a running battle with high heat — what can you expect?
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Comments 13
About zhe/zhei/na/nei: I used to live in Beijing about 10 years ago and now live in Singapore. As far as I can tell, the nei/zhei pronunciation is extremely rare here; I hardly hear it (except from mainlanders from Beijing).
About the tone of 菠; I’ve encountered quite a lot of characters where there are alternative tones that pop up in everyday speech. Unfortunately I won’t be able to think of all the examples now, but some of them are 室(supposedly tone 4, often pronounced in tone 3, at least in Beijing), 匹 (measure word for horses; supposedly tone 3 but often pronounced in tone 1), 血（supposedly xue4 or xie3 but often pronounced xue3), 骨头(supposedly gu3tou0 but often becomes gu2tou0) etc. I’m sure there are many more.
In Singapore, some people seem to pronounce 豆腐as dou4fu4 instead of dou4fu0 or dou4fu3, which would be more standard.
Posted 16 Sep 2008 at 6:22 pm ¶I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say bo1cai4 — although I am also not sure it’s ever come up in conversation for me outside Beijing, so that could be something to do with it.
I had no idea it was supposed to be anything other than second tone. Live and learn.
It’s certainly true that tones are more flexible than one might be led to believe, by both textbooks and Chinese-language Universalists (you know, the sort of people who claim there are no words in Cantonese that don’t also exist in Mandarin).
Posted 16 Sep 2008 at 7:38 pm ¶西兰花儿 vs 绿菜花儿:
As far as I can recall from my 1 and 1\2 years in Beijing, I’ve only meet one person who used the word 绿菜花儿 and if I remember correctly he was a 东北人. I’ll write an e-mail to one of my old mandarin teachers at 北大 (who’s a 东北人, if I’m not mistaken) and ask. I’ll be back with some real evidence when she replies.
Posted 17 Sep 2008 at 12:14 am ¶@Mikael: the zhei/nei stuff helps. At least we can conjecture it’s mostly confined to the mainland, but I’m guessing it’s much narrower than that too. The others you mention are among my pet annoyances too. I’ve never heard a Beijinger say anything but xuě for 血, for example. I’ve heard all sorts of “rules” for when it might be pronounced otherwise, but never heard any variation in Beijing. That said, I’m not denying it’s said that way elsewhere. I’m sure it is. The question is: where? We always hear that pǔtōnghuà is based on the dialect of Beijing. Either that’s not exactly true (and if so, where did the 血 pronunciation come from?) or Beijing dialect has changed so rapidly since someone documented the other pronunciations that the pinyin is now ossified as something that is basically incorrect, at least in Beijing. Or I guess the last possibility is that I just haven’t talked to enough Beijingers and there actually IS local variants that pronounce it otherwise.
@Tom: glad to hear you’ve heard it as bo2cai4 too. Same sort of question comes up: where did the bo1cai4 “supposed to be” pronunciation come from? Love the “Chinese-language Universalists” pejorative, btw.
@Andre: very interested to hear more on the 绿菜花儿. This is a weirder case where definitely lots of people who live in Beijing would be more likely to say 西兰花儿. Awaiting your report from the NE vegetable patch.
Posted 17 Sep 2008 at 6:48 am ¶I think that the stated standard is that the *pronunciation* of putonghua is based on the Beijing dialect, while the language in general is more nebulously “based on northern dialects”. This leaves open the possibility of having a putonghua standard for, say, ‘bocai’ that has non-Beijing tones but pronounces those tones in the Beijing way. E.g., first tone is high and level as opposed to high falling as it is in (if I am remembering this correctly) Tianjinhua.
The other thing is that “Beijing dialect” and Beijinghua aren’t necessarily synonymous. RP English, back in the days when people still talked about that, is based on the English dialect of London and the south-east, but it certainly isn’t “the” London accent or dialect.
A few Beijingers have commented to me that a lot of what is perceived as Beijinghua — particularly a lot of the er-hua stuff — is really from the areas immediately around the city (so, the Home Counties to Beijing’s London*). People from these areas get identified as “Beijingers” nonetheless, so that may be another factor at work.
* this analogy may contain traces of not-working-that-well.
Posted 17 Sep 2008 at 5:42 pm ¶I remember hearing and using zhei and nei in Changsha, but that is quite likely a false memory- it was a long time ago and I was only just starting to learn Chinese, and I’ve spent most of my China life in the north. I definitely heard zhei and nei in Taiyuan.
Also, I’ve heard (born and bred) Beijingers pronounce 血 as both xue and xie, with a variety of tones.
And I agree with Tom that what a lot of people perceive as Beijinghua isn’t necessarily, but I’m not convinced that the erhuayin is a “Home Counties” import. But I suspect that basically nobody born since the Cultural Revolution speaks proper Beijinghua anyway, and to find genuine Beijinghua speakers you’d probably have to look for people born before then whose families were in Beijing well before Liberation. Such people, in my experience, tend to have their tongues almost permanently rolled back, and the men have that erguotou voice. Younger people are simply too easy to understand, even if they are laobeijing.
Posted 18 Sep 2008 at 2:05 am ¶“the possibility of having a putonghua standard for, say, ‘bocai’ that has non-Beijing tones but pronounces those tones in the Beijing way”
@Tom — Convoluted, but I guess it’s possible. Still leaves open the question of where the “supposed to be” pronunciation came from. Does it all come from a single pronunciation textbook? Created by who?* It’d be cool to find a smoking gun. (BTW: are there any published standards on how high the safe “trace” level is for NWTW?)
@chriswaugh_bj — most of my memories are false, so I feel your pain. I’m glad you’ve heard both forms of 血, just cuz it’s a much more logical explanation of why you get the xie one in the dictionary. Although I have to say: my college-educated parents-in-law, lifelong Beijingers, said only that they might have recalled someone saying it at some time.
The who’s-a-Beijinger thing is right on. Erguotou voice — ha! — I’ve heard many of those with the Rs flying so thick you want to hand out muscle relaxants. Mostly old people, I agree. But did you ever listen to the young guy on this post?
syz
*Caution: this grammar has been known to cause deep offense among the prescriptively-inclined
Posted 18 Sep 2008 at 4:02 pm ¶Quick note on the pronunciation of 血…
The use of ‘xue’ vs. ‘xie’ oftentimes has to do with the context, or the specific word in which the character is involved. For example, the word 鲜血 would be pronounced “xian1 xue3″ and never “xian1 xie3,” while 流血 could be either “liu2 xue3″ or “liu2 xie3.” “Xie” is a probably the most often used pronunciation by a Beijingren, but has its exceptions, such as the example noted above. While “Xue4″ may be the “proper” pronunciation, it’s only used in the most formal and literal of occasions, such as a poetry reading, for example.
Posted 19 Sep 2008 at 7:33 am ¶@joe23521 — these are interesting claims, esp. that “‘xie’ is the most often used pronunciation by a Beijingren”. That runs counter to my personal experience. But I’ll be the first to admit that my experience is limited.
What we’re hoping for here is evidence. Who is saying this? Who is saying that xue4 is “proper”? Among what type of Beijinger is “xie” most common?
I would like to hear more. One of the central BJS themes is to provide evidence to support claims about language, so I’m hoping you can elaborate.
Posted 19 Sep 2008 at 2:18 pm ¶@syz,
Most of what I said is based on person experience. Although I was born in Tianjin, I consider myself a native Beijingren.
I did just check the 新华字典, which says “xue4″ is the proper pronunciation, while “xie3″ is often used in informal speech.
Another interesting thing I’ve noticed is that Beijingren tend to only speak true Beijinghua when surrounded by other Beijingren. When conversing with outsiders, they tend to tune down their Beijing accent and try to speak Putonghua, which is much harder for Beijingren than one might think. Just a personal observation, and practice.
Posted 19 Sep 2008 at 4:11 pm ¶@joeofmanynumbers — thanks for the 新华字典 thought. I always forget to go over there and check. Funny that they say the same thing as my ABC dictionary: that xue4 and xie3 are the pronunciations, but nothing about xue3 which I really swear I hear all the time but now am starting to doubt myself about.
Just to be utterly clear: you’re saying you’d use xie3 in everyday conversation yourself, right? What about in 流血?
I think this is very true. Sometimes people freak out and get all weird and academic when speaking to foreigners. A phenomenon I’ve noticed and really want to document is when people seem to sort of overpronounce and regularize their syllables — as if they’re reading character-by-character (even though they’re not reading but speaking). I hear this sometimes and it makes the speech much harder to understand than normal pronunciation. But it’s kind of a fleeting thing. Certainly not something you can re-create and not something you’re usually prepared to record in context.
Posted 20 Sep 2008 at 2:48 am ¶@syz#11
新华字典 is a great source, but I still prefer to use 现代汉语词典, but I’ve misplaced my copy and can’t seem to find it.
Back to “xie3″… Yes, I’d use this pronunciation in most daily conversations, exceptions being more academic and formal words and phrases, in which case I’d use “xue3″ but very rarely “xue4″, even though it is the formal pronunciation.
There’s probably dozens, if not hundreds, of cases where people tend to use informal, or flat-out wrong, pronunciations. I’ll try and come up with a list of them and post it here.
Your observation of people “over-pronouncing” is a good one. In fact, I’ve always thought of over-pronouncing the tone of each character as one of the most important traits of Beijinghua.
Posted 20 Sep 2008 at 6:29 am ¶Okay, here are a FEW examples off the top of my head. There’s probably hundreds more.
Informal pronunciations:
多少 (duo2 shao3 instead of duo1 shao3)
主意 (zhu2 yi5 instead of zhu3 yi4)
手指头 (shou3 zhi2 tou5 instead of shou3 zhi3 tou5)
指甲 (zhi1 jia5 instead of zhi3 jia5)
簸箕 (bo4 qi5 instead of bo4 ji5)
Improper pronunciations:
不屑一顾 (bu3 xiao1 yi1 gu4 instead of bu2 xie4 yi2 gu4)
粗糙 (cu1 zao4 instead of cu1 cao1)
几乎 (ji3 hu1 instead of ji1 hu1)
Plain weird pronunciations:
大栅栏 (Da4 Shi4 Lan4r instead of Da4 Zha4 Lan2)
锅巴菜 (ga1 ba5 cai4 instead of guo1 ba5 cai4)
Dialect-derived pronunciations:
给予 (ji3 yu3 instead of gei3 yu3)
亲家 (qing4 jia5 instead of qin1 jia5)
The people have won:
叶公好龙 (She4 Gong1 hao4 long2, now changed to Ye4 Gong1 hao4 long2)
Back in grade school, our teacher made a strong impression that if we would ever pronounce this phrase as “Ye4 Gong1 hao4 long2,” it would cause us literacy humiliation of Titanic proportions. Little did she know, a few years later, the language police would gave in to the public and wrong would become right. I, of course, still say “She4 Gong1 hao4 long2″ to prove either how well-educated or how stubborn and out of date I am.
成绩 (cheng2 ji1, now changed to cheng2 ji4)
My grade school teacher must be shedding another tear.
Couple other notes -
*** Third-tone followed by third-tone:
When a two-character word involves both characters being third-tone, the first character is usually pronounced as second-tone.
*** “W” vs. “V”:
Posted 20 Sep 2008 at 8:06 am ¶Technically, the “v” sound doesn’t exist in Chinese. However, more often than not, Beijinghua (and other Northern dialects) tends to substitute “w” with a subtle “v.” “Vang” instead of “Wang,” “Vei” instead of “Wei,” etc…
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