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Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| wyndhamfan Triglot Newbie Malaysia imaginarylands.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4669 days ago 5 posts - 16 votes Studies: Mandarin, English*, Malay, Hokkien | Message 49 of 57 14 July 2011 at 2:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, that's quite correct. Which is why during the 2008 Olympic games a lot of Chinese people around the world had a lot of pride in the games ... though I think they went overboard with the whole "do not criticise China bit" ... just admit it, dudes, China DOES have a bad human rights record....
I guess they're more lenient in Malaysia. ;) If you know your native dialect, you're generally forgiven. Generally. There are two branches of Chinese people in my country - those who are Chinese-educated, meaning they receive their instruction in Mandarin, and those who are English/Bahasa Malaysia educated -> Me. At one point of our history in Malaya, the Chinese folks thought it was more "hip" or more "modern" to send their kids to English schools. They felt that their kids had more of a future if they knew English. Therefore, my parents were sent to colonial schools (ie schools established by the British, usually by churches) and did not know how to write or read Chinese. However, political tides shifted in my time, and now most Chinese including those educated in English (I would say 90%) send their kids to Chinese schools because they deem these schools far superior, and many of them want to bring up kids who are fluent in both Chinese and English. What didn't change however is the disdain a Chinese-speaking Chinese would show those who have lost that ability to speak, read or write in Chinese. They really feel that we've betrayed our roots and race! It used to annoy the heck out of me because I think of myself as Malaysian first. But now I see it as this: Well, I do have this amazing heritage, so I better soak it up. And ignore those who call me a banana :P (They assume I'm a banana mostly because of the way I speak English ... it's typical of the way most BM/English-educated, non-Chinese-speaking folks speak. I let them assume that so I can eavesdrop on what they say. Tee hee.)
Really? How funny - Malaysians are striving to JUST be Malaysians. To this day we're still called by our race; our political groups are divided into parties that represent a specific race. Our political situation is such that language and race is politicised. English is seen as the language of the colonists, so the government has effectively stamped it out of the education system, resulting in a massive degradation of the language in my country. Attempts to revive it are met with cries of anger from certain ethnic groups, mainly the Malays who control the country, and who feel that their language is being given the short stick. Meanwhile, there are calls to abolish Chinese schools because the people who come out of the schools seem "separate" and their allegiance more towards the Chinese people than towards Malaysia. That is met with much anger from the Chinese ... We have Indian schools too, but they're left mostly alone, though with very little help or funding from the government :/ So, we have a situation where Malaysians are educated in two different ways: One, in the national language of Malaysia, and two, in their native tongue (either Mandarin or Tamil etc). But since the common tongue is Bahasa Malaysia, so all Malaysians speak it but with varying degrees of fluency. (If you don't speak BM, you'd really not get anywhere in business or education.) This is why you'd meet Malaysians who speak English with different accents ... though you can generally identify the Malaysian accent. It's a wee complicated. The whole situation has created a nation of polyglots but not a very united nation IMHO. There are plus and minus points to being a polyglot nation ;) On the one hand, it's such a wonderful gift we've been handed - to be totally immersed in a culture where at least three languages are spoken (we have Chinese, Malay and English newspapers and TV shows) on a daily basis. But on the other hand, some of us choose to think of it as a barrier to national unity. Sigh. 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6332 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 50 of 57 14 July 2011 at 3:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Cool post wyndhamfan
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| wyndhamfan Triglot Newbie Malaysia imaginarylands.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4669 days ago 5 posts - 16 votes Studies: Mandarin, English*, Malay, Hokkien | Message 51 of 57 15 July 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks, Leosmith :)
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| casey88 Newbie United States Joined 4713 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes | Message 52 of 57 15 July 2011 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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heey
I was wondering how to say ""Enjoy your vacation"". My try: 祝你假期过地开心/ 祝你度假度地开心-Can I say it this way??? Thanks in advance! " 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6366 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 53 of 57 15 July 2011 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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These two are ok
祝你玩得愉快 祝你旅途愉快 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ChaChaDavid Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4742 days ago 11 posts - 7 votes | Message 54 of 57 26 July 2011 at 7:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Did you know that Aichinese.com has interactive software, so you will talk to a human-computer and it will analyze your tones and pronunciation! Do you want to improve your spoken chinese? go to aichinese.com!
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| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4759 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 55 of 57 26 July 2011 at 1:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Do it helps to speak natively an language with an really easy tone system, as say, Scandinavian languages, some bantu languages, or some Native American languages? From looking at what is said on the net, japanese, as an example, find Chinese grammar to remind them of English, so the simpler structure of the grammar of English must seem to help them somehow to comprehend Chinese, while their native Japanese don't help that much, specially since they do not have tones in their language. Would, say, us scandinavians actually have an slight advantage learning Chinese?
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6691 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 56 of 57 27 July 2011 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Who knows, but personally I haven't found any Mandarin tone-combination that doesn't exist in my Gotlandic accent of Swedish (if I count different moods like question intonation, surprise etc.).
This being said, I know countless examples of Swedes who: 1 aren't even aware of our two-tone system 2 constantly fail to copy the Mandarin tones I think it's like the "musicians are good at languagues" debate. I'm pretty sure that my language ear has something to do with my music ear, but I still know too many musicians with bad pronunciation (and other non-musicians with pretty good pronunciation). Neither tone-language nor music skill proves anything. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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