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 decided to take a left from the right-turn lane.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Nále běnzi dànshì, yǒu zhízhào dànshì kāichē jìshù bùxíng. Běijīnghuà guǎn zhèi xiē rén jiào “mǎlù shāshǒu.”
拿了本子但是，有执照但是开车技术不行。北京话管这些人叫“马路杀手”
They’ve gotten their license but, they’ve got the license but their driving skill’s no good. In Beijing dialect they call these people “Road Killers” [mǎlù is "road" and shāshǒu is "hitman/killer"]
Extra BJS bucks, as usual, to the reader who supplies a more pungent translation.
[Update: fixed the mid-draft transcript -- not sure how that happened.]
Zhonglish speakers learn pretty quick that you hardly ever hear yuán (元 = RMB, Chinese unit of money) in casual contexts; kuài (块) is the unit of choice, more common than “bucks” in the US.
But what about yuánr? This was a first for the BJS studios, from a discussion with a driver about taxi economics:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Yīnwèi tā háiyào gěi zhèige jiāo èrbǎi lái yuánr zheige, jiùshi měitiān yǒu èrbǎi lái kuài qián de chē fènr qián.
因为他还要给这个交二百来元儿这个，就是每天有二百来块钱的车分儿车份儿钱。
…because he still has to pay 200 dollars [rmb], every day there’s 200 bucks of car lease money.
Yesterday’s pop quiz was to “Fill in the blank to name that lighting fixture component. Write it down so you can go to the store and buy it. Better yet, try to find it in a dictionary without using the English word that you already know.”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Jiùshì bǎ zhèige liàngde, gē zài zhèige shàngtou yě bù liàng. Shì zhèi yìsī ma? Nà jiùshi zhènliúqì huàile. Jiù gāngcái gěi nín shuō de nèi báide: zhènliúqì.
就是把这个亮的，搁在这个上头也不亮。是这意思吗？那就是镇流器坏了。就刚才您说的那白的：镇流器。
So you take this one that lights up and put it on top of this one and it doesn’t light up. Is this what you mean? Then your ballast definitely went bad. The thing that I was just telling you about, the white thing: the ballast.
Maybe it wasn’t that hard. But the first time he said it, before the recorder was on, it was one big nasal blur.
… easier for Zhonglish speakers to understand the accents of wàidìrén (外地人 = Chinese from outside the big city), that is. The hypothesis would be something like this:
Since the first thing to vary in non-Beijing Mandarin is often the tone on a word [unsubstantiated impression -- it would be cool to know of an actual study on this], and since Zhonglish speakers are not as naturally clued into tones as native speakers, they might have an easier time with wàidìrén accents.
Granted, it’s a highly dubious proposition. But before answering an emphatic No, consider how easy it is to understand some of what this Nǎinai says (as she picks her grandson up from PBS’s school) regardless of her very non-Beijing tones.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Nǐ de běizi ne? … nà huíjiā suǎn le ma
你的被子呢？ … 那回家算了嘛
What about your blanket? …then go home and it’s settled.
[Update: see comments below for full translation from "doctor" -- and thanks for corrections]
[red indicates non-standard pronunciation for what should be bèizi(被子) and suànle(算了)]
Would natives be confused? Almost definitely not by suànle — context is too strong. But bèizi maybe?
Today’s pop quiz: Fill in the blank to name that lighting fixture component. Write it down so you can go to the store and buy it. Better yet, try to find it in a dictionary without using the English word that you already know.
24 hours to respond. Answer tomorrow. Winning entry receives usual jackpot. Terms and conditions and relevant departments may apply.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Jiùshì bǎ zhèige liàngde, gē zài zhèige shàngtou yě bù liàng. Shì zhèi yìsī ma? Nà jiùshi ________ huàile. Jiù gāngcái gěi nín shuō de nèi báide: ________.
就是把这个亮的，搁在这个上头也不亮。是这意思吗？那就是________坏了。就刚才您说的那白的：________。
So you take this one that lights up and put it on top of this one and it doesn’t light up. Is this what you mean? Then your ________ definitely went bad. The thing that I was just telling you about, the white thing: the ________.
Bonus points: try this out on your southern-Mandarin-speaking friends and see if they hiccup.
——–
PS: Serious érhuàyīn and consonant elision here, but no time for serious analysis: these are soundbites!
As someone once said about music: do it once and it’s a mistake; do it twice and it’s a theme. For last week’s taxi driver, who hails from near the airport (NW [oops] NE outer suburbs), it’s shíyī yuèr (十一月儿 = November with plenty of R), twice baked.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
SJ: Wàiguórén lái Běijīng bù shǎo, kàn Běijīng, Tiān’ānmén. Nǐ kàn zhèige shénmede: shíyìyuèr shíbā hào. Zài nǐmen guójiā de nèige Àobāmǎ bùshì yào fǎngwèn Zhōngguó le ma?
外国人来北京不少，看北京，天安门。你看这个什么的：十一月儿十八号，在你们国家的那个奥巴马不是要访问中国了吗？
Quite a few foreigners come to Beijing, to see Beijing, Tiananmen. Y’know, November(rrr) 18th, that Obama, from your country, is going to visit China?
SYZ: A duì duì. Shénme shíhòu?
啊对对。什么时候？
Oh, right, right. When?
SJ: Shíbā hào ba
十八号吧
The 18th, I think.
SYZ: Zhèige shíyuè?
这个十月？
This October?
SJ: Shíyī yuèr
十一月儿
November(rrr)
SYZ: A shíyī yuè
啊十一月。
Oh, November.
Sometimes you wonder about bilingual dictionaries. ABC has “fall flat” as the only gloss for wòdǎo (卧倒), but somehow you doubt that’s what YU had in mind for PBS:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
YU: Zěnmele, bǎobeir?
怎么了，宝贝儿？
What’s wrong, honey?
MRS: Lèi le.
累了。
She’s tired.
YU: Wǒ kàn yě shì.
我看也是。
Looks like that to me too.
MRS: Chī yīdiǎnr fàn ba.
吃一点儿饭吧。
Eat some food.
YU: Kuài chī, kuài chī. Chīwánle nèige wòdǎo.
快吃，快吃。吃完了，那个，卧倒。
Hurry and eat — after you’re done you can lie down [or, as ABC Dict would have it: "fall flat"]
PBS: [whining]
[Another episode in Tourism, the series. Other parts here]
On this summer day in Xi’an, the old plaque in the BJS studios was again sounding overly cynical.
Tourist, n. One who favors packaged over live, who inches squeamishly past the teeming fauna of his own backyard — with its outrageous comedies, its epic contests, its tawdry intrigues — in order to reach the specimen cabinet at his neighbor’s place.
After all, one of the pleasures of a Chinese park is the music. You don’t have to travel to get music in the park, of course, any Beijing park worthy of the name will have a group of folks engaged in the making of it. The voices and instruments may be a bit rickety, but it’s not bloviating or shānzhài (山寨 = faked / knock-off), and that’s kind of lovely in itself.
Here’s the music:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
And the artists:
Add "Learn Chinese" to iGoogle