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Category Archives: beijing-r

Hang the wall on the gun

Scene: A towering glass and granite building located in Shangdi, suburban Beijing, the Silicon Valley of the capital city, not far from the comparatively puny corporate campuses of Google, Baidu, IBM, etc. The building top’s massive, fengshui-correct sculpture is only slightly obfuscated by the awkward bulk of the Beijing Sounds Studios name rendered in two [...]

Posted 06 January 2010 † syz § běijīnghuà § consonant elision § taxi § unexpected érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (19) °

Soundbites: Little Grandpa

How many Mandarin-speakers add érhuàyīn (儿化音 = Beijing-R, i.e. rhotic pronunciation) onto lǎoyé (老爷 = “Grandpa”)?
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Zhǎodàole lǎoyér
找到了老爷儿
I found grandpa.
This calls for a survey. But as usual, the technical team is behind schedule and over budget in installing the requisite tools.
And how to translate lǎoyér? How about: “gramps”?
Update: the studios [...]

Posted 11 October 2009 † syz § BJS Daily § unexpected érhuàyīn § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (7) °

Is the pirate’s Beijing Paradise in danger?

For those of you new to Talk Like a Pirate Day, it was first declared a Beijing Sounds staff holiday in 2008 when, reminded by Pinyin.info, a post was created to celebrate the R-ful Mandarin of the most rhotic city in Asia [feel free to quote that last phrase to your friends]. This year the [...]

Posted 18 September 2009 † syz § Beijinger Checklist / BJSLBC™ § EXMARaLDA transcriptions § Talk Like a Pirate Day § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (6) °

Chickens and Loogies

On knowing what’s normal; a wán v. wánr (玩 / 玩儿) showdown; defining a Beijinger

Picture a Shàngdì spring day of 23° (73° for you folks back in Minneapolis) with a sky so blue even the Ministry of Environmental Protection can give Beijing a reasonably believable API of 53 . The apartment koi ponds brim with [...]

Posted 17 April 2009 † syz § běijīnghuà § wàidìrén § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (12) °

Put back in place

On continuity in an age of fragmentation — lessons from YU

Right-sizing through consolidation seems to be a global trend. GM, for example, after sucking at the government teat a little too hard, is being asked to go from, well, the Chevy Suburban to the Tata Nano of the American car industry.
The Beijing Sounds Studios cannot [...]

Posted 05 April 2009 † syz § Yuèmǔ U. § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (2) °

Sticky rice dumplingy

On talking like a 7-year-old
The trouble with informants is that they’re human. Just take the case of the ingenuous Margaret Mead, who documented what appeared to her to be an idyllic and nearly angst-free sexual development for Samoan girls only to have it shown, later, that her informants were playing with her mind (short NYT [...]

Posted 10 February 2009 † syz § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (23) °

Statistical analysis: Zhonglish-Chinglish conference a success

On how to give away T-shirts, a taxicab Tāngr-Tāng recap with a bit of Zhonglish, and the bonus: a groundbreaking announcement for the 2009 conference

Posted 30 November 2008 † syz § běijīnghuà § personal § tones § zhonglish § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (8) °

Instant Zhonglish improvement — guaranteed

[ADVERTISEMENT: don't forget to consider the Zhonglish / Chinglish conference on Nov 17 -- still haven't heard from some of you three regular readers]
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Life is like a karaoke club — you always think you sound a bit better than you really do.
A karaoke club is like life — you can get away with a lot [...]

Posted 01 November 2008 † syz § Chao Yuen Ren 赵元任 Zhào Yuánrèn § zhonglish ‡ Comments (7) °