bluecollar Groupie United States Joined 6135 days ago 43 posts - 48 votes
| Message 17 of 108 22 January 2008 at 12:56pm | IP Logged |
Well,the hardest part to judge is the accent.For that,we need real native speakers of the languages.I hope to have some Indians,arabs,Chinese and Japanese on board.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6631 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto
| Message 18 of 108 22 January 2008 at 1:23pm | IP Logged |
I was curious where they got all those children's books in different languages, so I asked whoever runs the account on YouTube and they replied that they got them through Amazon.com So, in case anyone else had that question, there you go.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Lawrence Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6163 days ago 149 posts - 149 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English* Studies: German, French, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean
| Message 19 of 108 22 January 2008 at 3:10pm | IP Logged |
Here is a transcript of the Cantonese part, in case anyone wants to know for some reason:
Questioner(Q): 你有幾姊妹呀?
Wendy(W): 我有一個弟弟呀
Q﹕ 淨係有一個弟弟咖咋
你媽媽係做乜嘢咖?
W﹕我媽媽幫我個爸爸
Q﹕你鍾唔鍾意食中國餐呀?
W﹕唔鍾意
Q﹕唔鍾意?
噉你點解又要去XX食嘢呀?
鍾唔鍾意呀?
W﹕唔鍾意
Q﹕哦﹐原來唔鍾意
你幾多歲呀?
你幾多歲呀?
W﹕我八歲啦
Q﹕你學中文有幾耐呀?
W﹕我學啦*1。。
Q﹕學咗。幾多年呀?
W﹕六年
Q﹕六年定係五年呀?
W﹕唔係呀
Q﹕你又話你三歲開始學咖嘛
W﹕係呀
Q﹕但係你依家先得八歲﹐邊有六年呀?
W﹕等陣。。呀係呀﹐係唔五年呀
Q﹕係啦﹐講錯咗呀頭先
識唔識*2識唔識[讀*3]用廣東話讀哩啲課文呢?
你依家讀吓哩個課文畀我聽吓呀
W﹕好呀
小鴨說﹕媽媽﹐你帶我去遊泳好嗎?
媽媽說﹕小溪的水不深﹐自己去遊了
過去幾天﹐小鴨學會了遊泳
hmm.. 我唔食飲。。
Q﹕一樣咖嘛係唔係
W﹕係呀﹐一樣
Q﹕一樣咪得囉
噉你喺都做咩呀?
W﹕我睇有乜嘢好食
Q﹕你好鍾意o抄嘢食係咪?
W﹕係呀﹐點解-你知呀
Q:你睇吓食到肥o奪o奪緊係知啦
你最鍾意食乜嘢呀?
你最鍾意飲牛奶﹐最鍾意食糖﹐最鍾意食餅﹐ 係咪呀?
你依家搵咩嘢呀?
W﹕係呀(你係依個呀??)
Q﹕係咪話你再食就大肚腩咖
W﹕係呀
Q﹕點解XXX啲越南話同你啲廣東話一樣嘅?
W﹕乜嘢?
Q﹕佢話你再食就邊大腩咖啦﹐係咪噉講呀?
W﹕係呀
Q﹕點解同廣東話一樣嘅?
W﹕帽呀*4
Q﹕又帽?
W﹕點樣?
Q﹕你跳個舞嚟睇吓
W﹕我唔識跳舞呀
Q﹕你嗰日著條裙呢﹐喺度轉轉﹐轉得幾好睇 喎
跳嚟睇吓﹐再跳多一次
W﹕係咪噉樣呀?
Q﹕係呀係呀
你最鍾意做乜嘢呀?
嘩﹐做咩要咳呀?
感冒呀?
W﹕係呀
Q﹕好耐啦﹐你有冇食藥咖?
W﹕有呀
Q﹕你緊係要著對襪啦﹐又唔著襪又唔著鞋
W﹕我唔鍾意呀
Q﹕唔鍾意咪感冒囉
著東件衫呀嘛
你最鍾意咩玩*5具呀?
W﹕我唔知呀
Q﹕有唔知?
著*6住鍾意嗰啲
W﹕我鍾意玩嘅。。
Q﹕你最鍾意-
W﹕係YOYO呀
Q﹕YOYO係。。哦。噉唔*7見你玩過嘅?
W﹕喺度我冇呀嘛
Q﹕喺度冇玩。鍾二玩公仔
Now I don't know if the questioner is a native speaker or not, but there are some differences in the way she speaks Cantonese to how I do. Maybe it's some regional thing.
Asterisks:
1: probably a Mandarin/Cantonese confusion. She said 啦,which sounds very similar to 了in mandarin, which would have worked grammatically if she wasn't speaking Canto. The questionier corrects this.
2: Mispronounced, then self-corrected
3: Just a slip of the tongue, I should think
4: They were just talking about saying something the same in Vietnamese, so I assume that is a similar sounding word in Viet
5: The character is often pronounced waan2, but in this context, it shud be wun6. Regional thing?
6: No idea what this was supposed to mean, I just wrote what it sounded like to me
7: Grammatical error. Should have been 冇 instead of 唔
So yeah, I can't really tell if the questioner is native or not. Her Pronunciation is really good though, so I think she might be, or at least grew up around it. Maybe a Chinese Vietnamese person? Since she refers to similarities between the two languages. The girl started off well, but her pronunciation got very slightly dodgy near the end. She sounds like a Chinese kid who grew up overseas to be honest, which is pretty damn good! If I heard her speaking Cantonese with her family here in England, I'd probably assume she was a Chinese kid :)
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Lawrence Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6163 days ago 149 posts - 149 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English* Studies: German, French, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean
| Message 20 of 108 22 January 2008 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
PS. X's are syllables I couldn't catch for one reason or another.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
bluecollar Groupie United States Joined 6135 days ago 43 posts - 48 votes
| Message 21 of 108 22 January 2008 at 3:17pm | IP Logged |
Man.It seems to me the little girl passed the Cantonese test.She is obviously not a parrot.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
bluecollar Groupie United States Joined 6135 days ago 43 posts - 48 votes
| Message 22 of 108 24 January 2008 at 10:49am | IP Logged |
Wendy Vo is no hoax.She is one of the 10 role models for young American 18 and under.Check forbes.com and search for wendy vo.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
mattsfk Triglot Newbie Australia twitter.com/mattsfkRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6202 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Vietnamese, English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Danish, German
| Message 23 of 108 26 January 2008 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
In French she was not quite sure what kind of meat she had eaten, but in the Vietnamese cuisine that can be a real problem - it can be anything from prawns to dogs. In
the English text she did hesitate at the word "larkspur" - but they may not have larkspurs growing in Vietnam (and even I had to walk the long way to my English-Danish dictionary to find
out exactly which kind of flower it is).
|
|
|
I'm not sure if this was your attempt at tongue-in-cheek, but making yourself out to be an authority on Vietnamese cuisine, and implying that dogs are a common meat, is as much a
cheap shot as it is inaccurate.
Also, what does larkspurs growing in Vietnam have to do with anything? This girl was born in Charlotte, NC., USA.
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6233 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical)
| Message 24 of 108 26 January 2008 at 11:41pm | IP Logged |
I think that she’s fabulous! She’s EIGHT YEARS OLD everyone! Cut her some slack!!! There are tons of eight-year-old kids that would have trouble with the word “larkspur.” Her Spanish and Portuguese are as good or better than kids here in the USA whose parents immigrated from Brazil or Mexico. I too am interested in seeing her later down the road to see how many of those languages she can keep up.
3 persons have voted this message useful
|