Skip to content

Category Archives: zhonglish

Mandarin Study Programs?

On YU Alternatives — anyone have recommendations?

Here’s a bit of the guest lecture today at YU:

Posted 14 October 2008 † syz § Yuèmǔ U. § tones ‡ Comments (34) °

The Beijing-R exposed! (yet still sublime)

On the ineffable act of naming, the Beijing-R dissected by the white coats, and the ultimate BeijingerSometimes convergence happens. Not the dream where you’re listening to God Save the Queen belted out by a punk cover band in your company’s cafeteria, talking to Grandma Gertrude about Suzie (who you liked in high school) who’s supposed [...]

Posted 17 August 2008 † syz § Chao Yuen Ren 赵元任 Zhào Yuánrèn § Nigel Greenwood § beijing-r § běijīnghuà § education § linguistics § society § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (2) °

Beijing’s Final Gold

On Beizzhing v. Bay-Jing oddsmaking and how English speakers are finally going to pronounce the name of this city anyway
By this time you’ve heard from their mothers and their aunts. You might as well admit it: you’re addicted. You’ve been watching the human interest pieces, lapping up the sappy music, the soft lighting, the black-and-white [...]

Posted 16 August 2008 † syz § linguistics ‡ Comments (3) °

Olympic Endeavors

Olympic sloganeering & ingenuousness, Mandarin acquisition & n-closing, the Catch-22 of tones

If you’re a return reader to this blog of questionable taste, obscure subject matter and infrequent update, you probably have an appetite for a good cynical rant. Not that you’d be able to feed the habit on this url, mind you: as a recovering [...]

Posted 20 July 2008 † syz § tones § érhuàyīn ‡ Comments (13) °

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 § Yuèmǔ U. ‡ Comments (16) ° Tagged: ,

Zhonglish: ups and downs of tones in combination

A different way of thinking about how to put tones together
Let’s say you’re living in China’s Minnesota, the frigid dōngběi (东北 = northeast). You’ve come to Beijing for a bit of R&R and have met up with syz and his audio recorder. The idea is to talk linguistics and maybe record a random conversation [...]

Posted 13 April 2008 † syz § tones ‡ Comments (10) °

Wàiguórén xué zhōngguóhuà

Thanks to S.H.E. we Zhonglish-speakers now apparently have our own hit song, complete with rap lite and formulaic key change in the last refrain. Hat tip to Granite Studio for the reference to the song as it was performed for the new year.
Key phrase:
全世界都在学中国话
quán shìjiè dōu zài xué zhōngguóhuà
The whole world is learning Chinese

Posted 17 February 2008 † syz § MFL § běijīnghuà § youtube ‡ Comments (1) °

Zhonglish — Revenge of the Non-Native English Speaker

The first in a series [see all Zhonglish posts]. Part 1 — Tones
There’s really nothing fair about growing up as a native English speaker. The world wants to learn your language, no credit to you. But you, personally, get to reap all the benefits. You are invited to go to exotic places like oh, say, [...]

Posted 28 January 2008 † syz § tones § youtube ‡ Comments (20) °