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Category Archives: Yuèmǔ U.

A dose of soy sauce

On cooking your own shrimp YU style; free dinners in exchange for linguistic data; idiolects and other non-languagesIf you could map a man’s acquired vocabulary to a human body, there is no doubt that in the case of your correspondent, for Mandarin, the representative human body would be that of a three-week-old infant, with the [...]

Posted 30 August 2008 † syz § běijīnghuà § recipes ‡ Comments (14) °

Zhonglish: ulterior motives

Language correction as decoy
Those who think the sole purpose of language is communication are destined for disappointment and confusion. It’s not that language can’t serve that purpose, it’s just that it’s equally well suited to obfuscating, mollifying, incensing, distracting, humiliating… well, all those human activities so near to our hearts.
You’d hope this universal law of [...]

Posted 18 May 2008 † syz § zhonglish ‡ Comments (16) ° Tagged: ,

Yuèmǔ U. — Recordings from the classroom

On learning from elders — the core principles
The currency at Beijing Sounds is recordings of course. Youtube, Youku — they’re equally negotiable (and better than the sad sack USD these days). Or leave the recorder running and get candids on your friends, your relatives, your shopkeepers and taxi drivers. Money!
The truly gold-backed currency, though, is [...]

Posted 03 May 2008 † syz § ‡ Comments (9) °