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Category Archives: běijīnghuà

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 § beijing-r § consonant elision § taxi § unexpected érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (19) °

Soundbites: Hitmen on the street

What you’ve always wanted to mutter as you watch yet another eyes-glazed new driver white-knuckle his way through an intersection, oblivious to the little girl he almost knocked off her grandfather’s bicycle and clueless to the chaos he’s created from having just stopped in the middle of the intersection while he got his bearings and [...]

Posted 19 October 2009 † syz § BJS Daily § useful but hard to find Beijing dialect vocabulary ‡ Comments (4) °

Tip of the turd

In case you’re thinking about snagging the first bite of the first moon cake (yuèbǐng = 月饼, the sometimes-tasty-sometimes-nasty traditional food of the holiday) after cracking the seal on the ungodly expensive package, just keep in mind some words of wisdom from YU:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Chī shǐ yě děi chī ge jiār.
吃屎也得吃个尖儿。
“Has to eat the [...]

Posted 28 September 2009 † syz § Yuèmǔ U. § useful but hard to find Beijing dialect vocabulary ‡ Comments (5) °

Silkworm husbandry

On conversation topic universals

Spend too long with Beijing cabbies and you might think they were all…

Posted 08 June 2009 † syz § EXMARaLDA transcriptions § taxi ‡ Comments (10) °

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 § beijing-r § wàidìrén § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (12) °

Saturday sounds like this

On proper vocabulary, rethinking the third tone, and the Hànzì thought police

It was still before 8 a.m. when the staccato cacophony of metal on tile shocked Mr. Zhao out of bed.
Mere mortal sleepers might have been awakened long ago on this Shangdi Saturday morning, what with the constant pattering of feet, the grinding drone of [...]

Posted 14 December 2008 † syz § Yuèmǔ U. § tones ‡ Comments (6) °

哪=nǎ/něi你们的看法

女士们，先生们。
上篇文章上有一个出租车司机问”哪两个字儿？”（听一下儿这个录音）。 因为”哪”的口音就是”něi”，想问母语是汉语的人： 你们认为怎么样？ 一听这个口音你觉得是什么样的人？ 教育程度，什么地方的人，等
请大家执教。
————–
(request for native speaker intuitions on social implications of nǎ versus něi pronunciation of 哪 — see last post for details)

Posted 04 December 2008 † syz § ‡ Comments (13) °

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 § beijing-r § personal § tones § zhonglish § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (8) °