I find that a large number of my ABC friends claim to speak Chinese (cantonese or mandarin) fluently. I (also an ABC) myself thought that my cantonese was superb until the first time I tried to listen to a news broadcast in cantonese. I had no idea what they were talking about. -shock Then I tried to translate medical terms for a neighbor and embarassed myself when I belatedly realized that I just didn't know certain technical or anatomical terms. -blush So now I only claim to being conversationally familiar. -unsure How about you? How good is your spoken Chinese? Ralph
Same thing here. After 9/11, I volunteered for the Red Cross as a Chinese interpreter to help non-English speakers in Chinatown apply for financial aids, temporary housing, etc. I also had to asked if anyone had lost love ones, jobs, homes, etc. from the terrorist attack. Well, that was when I realized that my Mandarin sucks. I was clueless on how to express these questions in Mandarin: - Do you have your Social Security card with you? - Have you applied for assistance from FEMA? I quit after 4 hours of volunteering because I was USELESS to everyone. )
well i think your Chinese probably is good, its just that we don't usually speak in the way Chinesenewscasters speak. plus they speak hella fast in monotoned voices, its hard to pay attention. i always thought i was pretty damn good at Chinese (well listening/speaking/understanding anyway), but then one day my friend tells me i have a slight 'whitewash' accent (she says my Chinese grammar and stuff are good, just that i speak funny).. i asked my mom this and she told me she never noticed lol. maybe cuz shes gotten used to it? but meh.
See, therein lies the problem. The way that those Chinese new broadcasts are done, is real Chinese; the stuff that I (and most ABC's) learned at home by speaking with Mom and Dad, is really just conversational Chinese. If one had to speak about anything beyond the condition of the weather or ordering dim sum, then being at a loss for words is not good. I once tried to translate a letter that a neighbor obtained from his doctor, which explained that he needed to be placed on anticoagulants because of a chronic cardiac rhythm. He needed to be aware of certain side effects, mostly related to bleeding; that certain drugs or foods could have an effect on the medication that he was taking. Further, he also needed to have a lab check his blood's clotting time every few weeks. I sat there staring at the letter for the longest and finally told him that there were too many technical terms for me to translate. Luckily, my mother was there, she took the letter and looked for about two seconds and proceeded to translate the letter with words in Chinese I never even knew existed. She sounded like one of the doctors in a TVB show, and finished the thing in about 30 seconds, handing the letter back to him. Then she started to apologize for not teaching her idiot son (me) proper Chinese. So, to make a long story short, I was owned. -shock Ralph
I found that repeated exposure to the language, especially examples of formal Chinese (like that spoken on the news) gave me insights into how words and phrases are put together. Examples are shows where they deal with things of a somewhat technical nature, but are explaining to the audience what it is that they're talking about. Also, Chinese has a curious way of dropping secondary words when the primary words are used in combination. For example (in loosely phonetic Cantonese): Sum Georng Gay Yook Goong Jork Lung Lick Where: Sum Georng = Cardiac Gay Yook = Muscle Goong Jork = Work Lung Lick = Ability or Cardiac Muscle Work Ability, may be expressed by dropping the trailing secondary words and just using the primary words: As in: Sum Gay Goong Lung ...which, if you haven't already figured out, means Cardiac Output. The funny part about this is, I figured this out by watching a TVB medical series. Ralph
The best way to learn is from birth of course. As much as you get immersed into chinese (from english).. it just won't allow you to fit in .. no matter how good your chinese is.. unless you get rid of that american accent (which most ppl can't). other than that.. go live in a chinese person's home (they have programs for this) .. and read some translation books while you get immersed... and make sure nobody speaks english well around there.
This is an interesting thread. My Chinese is alright. But I would like it to be better, like know more formal words, more HK slang, etc. But luckily I can read and write Chinese as well, so that kinda balances it out. Otherwise, it'd be embarrassing.
You all seem to be very good. I can only speak canto fluently. Can understand some mandarin. As for the news. . .I can understand canto news very well and not so much for the mandarin news.
Another good gauge on how well you actually understand Chinese as a spoken language is to ask yourself if you understand the lyrics in Chinese music. If you don't understand 100% of a song's lyrics, then you're really not fluent in that language. I know this because I understand lyrics 100% (every word) perfectly if a song is in English. In Chinese, I may follow the music, but I'll be damned if I even know what they're saying 90% of the time. Ralph
My level of fluency is probably about just enough to figure out the HK & Taiwan serials and restaurant menu =P I have been wondering, for overseas born chinese, what do you guys list as your mother tongue? Chinese or the main language you speak? Do you put Chinese as your mother tongue even though you can't read & write but speak a smattering of it? When I first started uni, we had to take an oath before being issued the library card. Was told the oath (that i wont burn it down etc etc - v old uni) has to be read in the mother tongue. Was given a card in Mandarin...and was highly embarrasing to ask the officer there to give me one in English... And do overseas born chinese speak other dialects aside from Canto? Such as Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka etc?
I'm semi fluent in cantonese however it is sometimes difficult to understand formal chinese. I also have trouble understanding music lyrics =[ But I am able to speak the language fine.
Personally, if asked, I consider English to be my mother tongue since it's the language that I communicate best in. Which, in and of itself, is rather strange, as both my parents spoke cantonese only at home, and I never spoke a word of English until I reached kindergarten. Ironically, my eldest son was in the same situation; that is, never having to speak a word of English until his first day in school. Now that he's grown, his cantonese has reverted to a form that may inspire comedies about overseas Chinese. Another recent influx to the Chinese diaspora in New York City, are the new immigrants from Fujian, who speak fukienese. But most Chinese now all seem to speak Mandarin (that is, except me). :( No offense, Azndude18, but I find it amazing that you can say you speak the language fine but admit difficulty to understanding the lyrics in music. I too, am in such a position, and I now consider myself to have only a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese. That is, I can neither read nor write, but have a working conversational knowledge of one particular dialect of Chinese. I cannot fully appreciate the subtle nuances of abbreviated phrases, nor understand formal speech, and cannot translate lyrics. In other words, far from saying that I can speak the language "fine" I consider my ability in Chinese to be genuinely lame; I would be embarassed to claim otherwise. -shock Ralph
No offense, Azndude18, but I find it amazing that you can say you speak the language fine but admit difficulty to understanding the lyrics in music. I too, am in such a position, and I now consider myself to have only a rudimentary knowledge of Chinese. That is, I can neither read nor write, but have a working conversational knowledge of one particular dialect of Chinese. I cannot fully appreciate the subtle nuances of abbreviated phrases, nor understand formal speech, and cannot translate lyrics. In other words, far from saying that I can speak the language "fine" I consider my ability in Chinese to be genuinely lame; I would be embarassed to claim otherwise. -shock Ralph[/QUOTE] Why would you be embarassed to admit what you can and can't do? All I said was that I can speak Cantonese and communicate with others in everyday conversations but I have trouble with formal, slang, and understanding lyrics from songs. I don't see what is so embarassing about that. -unsure
Why would you be embarassed to admit what you can and can't do? All I said was that I can speak Cantonese and communicate with others in everyday conversations but I have trouble with formal, slang, and understanding lyrics from songs. I don't see what is so embarassing about that. -unsure[/QUOTE] Sorry, then Azndude18, actually I think I misread your statement and thought you had said something entirely different. Now that I'm reading over again, it's clear that I didn't read through the whole thing and thought you were claiming something else. My apologies. -noclue Ralph
