Take the pledge: Chinese Language Immersion Programs

Under the language pledge at CET in Beijing with my limited experience with Chinese, completing simple tasks often felt like major successes. For example, in my first week I made a trip across the street to the local shop to pick up a pair of nail clippers, some shampoo, and a roll of tape. Before my trip I cha’d my zidian (查字典, chá zìdiǎn, looked up words in the dictionary) and headed over to the shop. I ended up getting all three of my items with minimal confusion, and even pulled off getting complimented on my Chinese by the shopkeeper. I returned to my 宿舍 (sùshè, dorm) feeling high on life. I was in the stage of learning Chinese where putting together a sentence for the first time sometimes made me feel like a poet, working with the bits and pieces of the language to construct new sentences.
Language immersion programs like CET are a popular choice these days for students of Chinese who want to learn a lot in a short amount of time. In these programs the students usually have to sign a 语言誓约 (yǔyán shìyuē, language pledge) promising that they will only speak Chinese for the duration of the program, both in and outside of the classroom. These programs have some definite benefits over traditional ones, but also have their fair share of drawbacks. I’ve had a couple of different experiences with language immersion programs: as a student at CET in Beijing during the ‘07 summer session and as an assistant Chinese language director this past summer at an MMLA program in Massachusetts.

So, first the pros:

1. You can learn a lot of Chinese really quickly. Every situation you find yourself in you have to figure out what to say and look up the words you don’t know. For example when I got to Beijing one of the first things that happened to me was the key to my dorm room broke in half when I turned it in the lock. I had to look up the words for key, lock, and broken before I could explain my situation in Chinese to the 师傅 (shīfu, respectful term for any professional person, in this case the building grounds keeper). The course was accelerated as well so we covered all of Integrated Chinese book 1 in 9 weeks.

2. Everyone is in it together so your level of nervousness goes down you gain confidence with speaking Chinese. At least during class, students tend to suck it up and try as hard as possible to speak only in Chinese. The vibe of communal suffering encourages students to speak up and not be afraid of making mistakes.

3. Chinese 同屋 (tóngwū, roommates). The CET program placed most all of the students in dorm rooms with Chinese roommates. This was an awesome step in the right direction. Having the Chinese roommates around provided lots of opportunities to talk, hang out, and become friends with Chinese people roughly my own age. It would have been tough to form friendships with Chinese people from outside of the school in such a short time (9 weeks).

And the cons:

1. Everything is 囧(jiǒng, awkward). Seriously, it is. I’ve had a lot of 囧 meals with people in immersion programs. During class time things are usually fairly structured and students tend to do better with the language pledge because they know what they are supposed to be doing. But once class is over and things are unstructured, it is harder to stay in the target language and things get 囧er and 囧er.

2. It doesn’t feel natural to be speaking Chinese with classmates and other people who share your native language. You might think that you could somehow suspend your knowledge that you could be speaking much more efficiently with your classmates in English. In theory this would work. The problem is that to do so is going directly against the natural forces at play and will ultimately always fail as a strategy. Check out John Pasden’s blog post about the language struggle for a more in depth analysis of the natural forces involved in the choice of what language to use. This is a real problem in immersion programs because the students will always break the pledge outside of the classroom and then it causes a chain reaction and eventually the whole idea of the pledge flies out the window.

3. Outside of class there are certain situations that just don’t make sense to speak Chinese in. For example, at CET we did a scavenger hunt at the 颐和园 (Yíhéyuán, Summer Palace in Beijing). Part of the activity involved talking to random people to ask about the history of the palace. I ended up talking to some tourists who looked like they were from China, but actually they were ABC and didn’t speak much Chinese. It seemed ridiculous to try to speak to them in Chinese when I knew full well that we shared English as our native language. Another similar situation was when I went to my foreign friend’s party outside of campus and I met a whole bunch of foreigners who were all studying Chinese, but not necessarily in language pledge programs.

4. Students create their own jokes, words, and phrases in the target language that are mutually understandable to them, but not necessarily to a native Chinese speaker. This was actually a lot of fun and was a creative way to use what little language we had at the time. One of the “jokes” which doesn’t seem all that funny in retrospect was every single day at lunch a bunch of 100 level jock types who sat at my table would say “吃饱了”, but they’d say it like “bawl’aaaaa!” while miming shooting a basketball. It was supposed to sound like the way that a teenage boy might yell “ball’a!” on the basketball courts in the US. Despite the fun of making stupid jokes that only native English speakers can pick up on, it doesn’t contribute much towards to goal of learning to speak Chinese in an authentic way.

During my experiences teaching English in Shanxi province and hanging out with Chinese people I learned that in most cases I didn’t need to speak only in Chinese. Most of the Chinese people I met were interested in having a bit of language exchange and switching between English and Chinese. I think the dual language programs cropping up around the US are a promising method for the future of language learning in the US. As I understand it, programs like the Shuangwen school in NYC generally enroll half and half native speakers of English and of Chinese. There is no language pledge but half of the classes are taught in English and the other half in Chinese. The students are encouraged to help each other out with the language learning so that everyone works towards the goal of becoming bilingual. This methodology seems to me to be a better reflection of the reality of language learning: that it is healthy and natural to have a certain amount of give and take between your native language and your target language.

Have any Skritter users tried out a Chinese immersion program? Can you add any pros/cons to my list? Any thoughts on dual language schools in the US?

Pizza Hut in China 必胜客在中国 (Bìshèngkè zài Zhōngguó)

Ever ordered escargot or steak at a 必胜客 (Bìshèngkè, Pizza Hut)? I certainly hadn’t, that is - before going to China. Being from the Midwest where Pizza Huts tend to be on the outskirts of town hiding somewhere in the urban sprawl, I don’t hold them up as a beacon of fine dining to say the least. They are good for the occasional cheesy fat pill, delivered to my doorstep, but not much else. I pretty much wouldn’t consider eating at a pizza hut in the US unless I was desperate.

I was surprised to find that Pizza Hut in China is completely different from its counterpart in the US. They offer three-course gourmet meals at a pretty penny. You can find on the menu: seafood (including: oysters, snails, and shrimp), salads, soups, steaks, pizza (of course), and all kinds of desserts. To complete the Western dining experience you can also drink a bit of 咖啡 (kāfēi, Coffee) with your meal. Dan, an American who taught English in China, wrote about pizza hut in his blog, “For one thing, it's ‘classy.’ The servers are well-dressed, the place looks really nice, and there are no groups of screaming children. Western restaurants are more of a fine-dining experience in China, even the ones that would never be considered as such at home.”

I remember in first-year Chinese class at Oberlin College our Chinese teacher was introducing the topic of food, asking us what we like to eat, what we don’t like to eat, etc… (In case you don’t know, Oberlin is a pretty hippy place. On an average day you’d be pretty unlikely to see any Oberlin students eating in a fast food restaurant. Actually, you’d be more likely to see Oberlin students rallying against the fast food chains of America.) The teacher asked us, “你们喜欢吃肯德基/麦当劳/必胜客吗?” (Nǐmén xǐhuān chī Kěndéjī/Màidāngláo/Bìshèngkè ma?, Do you all like to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken/Mcdonalds/Pizza Hut?). There was a great moment of uncomfortable non-response and smiling from the class. Most of the students would usually prefer to eat a spinach wrap with sprouts inside rather than a bacon cheese quarter pounder from Mcdonalds. I think the teacher really was oblivious to the status that fast food has in the US (especially to middle class liberal minded college students, don’t get me wrong here).

You can see in the advertising how different Pizza Hut’s marketing schemes are for China and the US. This American advertisement for 必胜客 appeals to your interest in being a lazy bum and eating in the convenience of your own home. Your kids will also love you by the way and you’ll be the coolest dad on the block. Basically pizza hut food=junk food that you can wolf down at your house and feel awesome about.



Then check out this Chinese Pizza Hut ad for a sharp contrast. It appeals to the consumer’s interest in Western culture. Taking your date to Pizza hut in China is a great way to show off your wealth and interest in foreign cuisine. The joke at the end where the Chinese dude can’t help himself and starts yelling in Italian = you will also soak up foreign language and culture if you eat at 必胜客.




You can check out the offerings today at Pizza Huts in China here. They have expanded their menu to include a whole range of options including Greek Lamb, BBQ Kebab, kimchi pork rice, and for dessert - chocolate mousse, or a selection of pies.

An interesting phenomenon at Pizza Hut is the way Chinese people sometimes make use of the self serve salad bar. I don’t know if they still have it these days (Can any skritter users out there tell us?), but I’ve heard that in the early 90s when Pizza Hut first came to Beijing one of the big draws of the restaurant was the fact that in your single trip to the salad bar you could pile as much salad on to your plate as you could manage to balance on the way back to your table. Here are a couple of photos of what some Chinese people with too much time on their hands created at the Pizza Hut salad bar.

Chinese people's English names 中国人的英文名字 (Zhōngguórén de Yīngwén míngzi)

Earlier this week I saw this video (below) from Sexy Beijing about the English names that Chinese people choose. During my time in China I encountered my fair share of Chinese people with English names that seemed a bit strange. In my first year as an English teacher at 山西农业大学 (Shānxī Nóngyè Dàxúe, Shanxi Agricultural University) I didn't want to be imperialistic and force English names on my students so I decided instead to let them pick whether they wanted to use their Chinese name, choose their own English name, or have me help them choose an English name. Almost all of my students (about 135 out of 140) either already had their own English name, chose their own English name, or wanted me to help them choose a name. For the students who wanted me to help them choose an English name I asked them a few questions: Do you want an English name that sounds similar to your Chinese name? Do you want a common name or a more unusual name? Then I gave them my first pick and a few other secondary options.
The majority of students who wanted help picking an English name wanted names that were common and sounded similar to their Chinese names. It was a challenge on my part to find the right names to fit the criteria. This year I helped three of my Chinese students choose English names. For 林舒燃 (Lín Shūrán) I settled on "Susan Lin", for 林必成 (Lín Bìchéng) I chose "Brian Lin", and for 林晨丽 (Lín Chénlì) I chose "Jenny Lin". I opted to keep their 姓 (xìng, family name) spelled out in pinyin and base their English first name off of the sounds of their Chinese 名 (míng, first name).

The photos below are of some of my graduate students from Shanxi Agricultural University proudly showing off their new English names. If you click to get a closer look, you'll see that the namecards read: (top) Ryne, Sunny, Sean, Jarry, (middle) Kobe, Paul, Rain Man, (bottom) Swallow, Lily, Lucifer, Vivid.
I've found that the English names Chinese people tend to choose generally fall into these several categories (all of the examples are from students I met in China):

1. Common names (Paul, Lily, Susan, Jon)
2. Animal/plant names (Swallow, Fly, Ghost, Bird, Lucifer)
4. Food names (Cherry, Apple)
5. Object/adjective names (Neat, Sunny, Power, King, Vivid, Water, Sea, Summer)
6. Number names (Six, Seven)
7. English names with creative spellings (Jarry, Blandon)
8. Superstar English names (Kobe, Dick Cheney, Benz, Zelda, Link)
9. Extra creative names (Silver Fox, Judy Chicago, Mou, Rain Man)

I sat down and had a talk with Jarry and Blandon pointing out that they were not using the most common spelling or pronunciation for their English names. They both stuck with their names because they wanted to be different from the norm and they thought the names sounded better after the change in spelling (Just like Samanfar in the Sexy Beijing video).

If you look at the user comments on youtube about the sexy beijing video, you'll see that it caused a considerable amount of controversy. Some people said that they thought 苏菲 was being really demeaning and possibly even verging on racist by poking fun at the unusual English names. Personally I think that a lot of Chinese people choose their English names fully aware that the name is a little out of the ordinary. I don't see a problem with that. If a Chinese person with a strange English name should happen to work abroad or come into frequent contact with English speaking 老外 (lǎowài, foreigners), they could always change their English name later on. Back in High School I chose to be named "Luigi" in Italian class (a shout out to Luigi of Super Mario Brother's fame). I wasn't planning to use Luigi in any other context outside of Italian class, and it was fun during that time. I was given my first Chinese name, 芮杰明 (Ruì Jiémíng) by my Chinese professor at Oberlin College, but later decided to change my 姓 after I found out that 芮 is not very common, plus the fact that I couldn't pronounce Ruì very well during my first year of studying Chinese.

Have you met any Chinese people with unusual English names? Am I leaving out any categories of English names? Have you taken a Chinese name?

Let me leave you with two anectodes:

On my way to class I see my student "Ghost" zooming by on his bike, so I yell out, "Hi Ghost! What's up?". He yells back "Hey Ben, not much!"

A fellow teacher had a student named "Dead Soul", who often skipped class. Imagine taking attendance every day at the beginning of class:
"Jim" ... "Here!"
"Susan" ... "Here!"
"Dead Soul" .... (no response) ...
"Dead Soul?" ... (uncomfortable silence)
"Jerry" ... "Here!"

Chinese tongue twisters and palindromes 汉语绕口令和回文 hànyǔ ràokǒulìng hé huíwén

Have you learned any Chinese tongue twisters or palindromes? Getting a few of these under your belt can help improve your Chinese, not to mention that they also make great party tricks.

This tongue twister is the one that I heard most often during my time in China: 吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮，不吃葡萄倒吐葡萄皮, (chī pútao bú tù pútao pí, bù chī pútao dào tù pútao pí). This translates literally to “eat grapes (but) don’t spit out grape skins, don’t eat grapes (and) spit out grape skins”.

Another good one to check out is this one full of shí and shì sounds: 四是四，十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十；谁把十四说“十适”，就打他十四；谁把四十说“适十”，就打他四十 (sì shì sì, shí shì shí, shísì shì shísì, sìshí shì sìshí; shéi bǎ shísì shuō "shíshì", jiù dǎ tā shísì, shéi bǎ sìshí shuō 'shìshí', jiù dǎ tā sìshí). This translates literally to “four is four, ten is ten, fourteen is fourteen, fourty is fourty; whoever calls fourteen “shíshì” (you should) hit fourteen (times), whoever calls fourty “shìshí” (you should) hit fourty (times). I heard 大山 (arguably the most famous foreigner in China) recite this one or a modified version of this one once at blinding speed in a youtube video (if I remember right I think it was during the CCTV 春节联欢晚会 (chūnjié liánhuān wǎnhuì, Spring Festival Party tv program). If anyone has seen that video please post a link to it below in the comments.

The band S.H.E. from 台湾 (Táiwān, Taiwan) has a song with a couple of up-tempo rap style tongue twisters. The lyrics and music video are at the end of this post for you all to check out. Also for those of you into Chinese language podcasts, check out this one from Popup Chinese, where they recite some impressive tongue twisters. Listen at 5:50 to hear the king of Chinese tongue twisters as far as I'm concerned. It is so fast that it sounds to me almost like an audio track of someone speaking a weird dialect of Chinese played back at 4X.

回文 (huíwén, palindromes) are relatively easy to form in Chinese compared to in English. In English palindromes the spelling of each word is important and must be symmetrical. For example: “Was it a cat I saw?”, “A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!”, and “No "x" in "Mr. R. M.Nixon"?” It's easier to create palindromes in Chinese because 汉字 (hànzì, Chinese characters) are word-units so there is no need to worry about symmetrical spellings like in alphabet based languages. Chinese 回文 are not usually symmetrical but instead can be read in either direction for two different meanings. This is particularly interesting considering that Chinese is sometimes written from right to left, especially on old placards hanging above doors at temples and other old buildings. There is a lot of potential for confusion on the part of the unseasoned Chinese student who might not know which direction the sign is meant to be read. Here are two Chinese palindromes for you to chew on: (thanks to the Chinesehour blog)

“我爱妈妈，妈妈爱我” (wǒ ài māmā, “I love mother, māmā ài wǒ, mother loves me”)

“上海自来水来自海上” (shànghǎi zì lái shuǐ - láizì hǎi shàng, “Shanghai’s tap water comes from the sea”)

Yellowbridge has a great list of a bunch of other palindromes with english translations here. These were my favorites:

人过大佛寺 (R to L: rén guò dà fó sì, A man walks past Big Buddha Temple, L to R: sì fó dà guò rén, The temple's Buddha is bigger than a man)

僧游云隐寺 (R to L: sēng yóu yún yǐn sì, Monk travels to Cloud Hiding Temple, L to R: sì yǐn yún yóu sēng, The temple hides the clouds and traveling monks)

What other Chinese tongue twisters have you encountered? Do you know of any other Chinese music that uses awesome tongue twisters? Have you seen any palindrome signs or posters in China that make sense both ways?




To translate the lyrics, try Pera Pera Kun for Firefox or the Zhongwen plugin for Chrome.

中国话 (Zhōngguóhuà, Chinese Language)

扁担宽 板凳长
扁担想绑在板凳上
扁担宽 板凳长
扁担想绑在板凳上

伦敦玛莉莲 买了件旗袍送妈妈
莫斯科的夫司基 爱上牛肉面疙瘩
各种颜色的皮肤 各种颜色的头发
嘴里念的说的开始流行中国话
多少年我们苦练英文发音和文法
这几年换他们卷着舌头学平上去入的变化
平平仄仄平平仄 (仄仄平平仄仄平)
好聪明的中国人 好优美的中国话

扁担宽 板凳长
扁担想绑在板凳上
板凳不让扁担绑在板凳上
扁担偏要绑在板凳上
板凳偏偏不让扁担绑在那板凳上
到底扁担宽还是板凳长
哥哥弟弟坡前坐
坡上卧着一只鹅
坡下流着一条河
哥哥说 宽宽的河
弟弟说 白白的鹅
鹅要过河 河要渡鹅
不知是那鹅过河
还是河渡鹅
全世界都在学中国话 孔夫子的话 越来越国际化
全世界都在讲中国话 我们说的话 让世界都认真听话

纽约苏珊娜 开了间禅风Lounge Bar
柏林来的沃夫冈 拿胡琴配着电吉他
各种颜色的皮肤 各种颜色的头发
嘴里念的说的开始流行中国话
多少年我们苦练英文发音和文法
这几年换他们卷着舌头学平上去入的变化
平平仄仄平平仄 (仄仄平平仄仄平)
好聪明的中国人 好优美的中国话
有个小孩叫小杜
上街打醋又买布
买了布 打了醋
回头看见鹰抓兔
放下布 搁下醋
上前去追鹰和兔
飞了鹰 跑了兔
洒了醋 湿了布
嘴说腿 腿说嘴
嘴说腿 爱跑腿
腿说嘴 爱卖嘴
光动嘴 不动腿
光动腿 不动嘴
不如不长腿和嘴
到底是那嘴说腿 还是腿说嘴
全世界都在学中国话 孔夫子的话 越来越国际化
全世界都在讲中国话 我们说的话 让世界都认真听话
全世界都在学中国话 孔夫子的话 越来越国际化
全世界都在讲中国话 我们说的话 让世界都认真听话
全世界都在学中国话 孔夫子的话 越来越国际化
全世界都在讲中国话 我们说的话 让世界都认真听话

兔头 (Rabbit Heads) and other odd foods

The city 大同 (Dàtóng) in 山西 (Shānxī) Province has a rabbit head street. It’s lined with 兔头 (tù tóu, rabbit head) (pictured on the left, top) restaurants that offer up the local specialty at different levels of spiciness. I felt a bit grossed out by the huge barrels of cooked rabbit heads sitting out on the street in front of the restaurants, but curiosity eventually overcame me and I ended up going in and ordering a couple of spicy rabbit heads. I sat down not really knowing how to approach eating a rabbit head. My friend showed me how it’s done: first you gnaw the meat off the cheek areas, then grab the mandibles and crack it open so you can bite out the tongue, and the final touch if you are really hardcore is to bite into the top of the head and suck out the brain.

After taking the initial plunge and eating rabbit heads, I felt inspired to try a bunch of other strange foods. Some of the ones that I ended up trying include: pig’s feet, chicken’s feet, goose feet, duck neck (pictured on the left, bottom), duck tongue, cow brain, cow stomach (pictured on the left, middle), fish flotation bladder, donkey meat hotpot, stinky tofu, and dog meat. Some of the ones I still haven’t tried include: roasted scorpions on a stick and drunken shrimp. If you subscribe to Chinesepod you can check out a great advanced lesson on strange Chinese foods, 古怪食物

At some point during my first month in China I came up with a special ordering strategy: I would only order things on the menu with names I didn’t understand. The process was surprising, hit or miss, and a whole lot of fun. Sometimes I knew the meaning of the food names on the menu character-by-character without knowing the combined meanings. For example, at one of my first meals I decided to order 牛白叶 (niú bái yè), which sounded harmless to me. The name looked like “Cow white leaf”. I thought to myself, “sounds like a beef dish with some exotic vegis on the side”. For my 饮料 (yǐnliào, drink) I ordered 雪碧 (xuěbì) which I understood character-by-character to mean “Snow Jade”. So I thought to myself, “sounds like an exotic island style mixed drink.” My little pocket dictionary didn’t have 雪碧 as an entry so I was clueless as to the combined meaning. I was pretty surprised when the waiter brought out my meal which consisted of a plate of cow stomach (pictured on the left, middle) and a sprite！

You probably already know if you’ve ordered food at a 地道 (dìdao, authentic) Chinese restaurant that Chinese menus are difficult to get a handle on because of the huge variety of foods and local specialties. A good way to start working on reading Chinese menus is to first learn the general menu categories. You’ll often see 肉类 (ròu lèi, meat category)，蔬菜 (shūcài, vegetables)，汤 (tāng, soups)，饮料 (yǐnliào, drinks)，主食 (zhǔshí, staple food). The 主食 is usually rice, noodles, or 馒头 (mántou, steamed buns). In 山西 where I lived the 主食 was usually served last in the meal when I would usually be feeling completely stuffed from all of the other food. It might also be helpful to add some general food vocabulary to your skritter study program. I’d recommend this custom list: How To Order Chinese Food (Ordering Guides) provided by Skritter user Lyons.

So for all of you skritter users out there - I’m wondering what strange foods have you all tried in China? Does anyone have other tips for getting started with Chinese menu reading?

中文版的猫和老鼠 (zhōngwén bǎn de māohélǎoshǔ) Tom and Jerry Cartoons Overdubbed in Chinese

Last week I was reading the forum thread about what else people use to study Mandarin and wanted to put in my own two cents here about using Tom and Jerry cartoons as study materials. If you’re a fan of Tom and Jerry cartoons you should definitely check out the Chinese dubbed versions. In Chinese the cartoons are called 猫和老鼠 (māohélǎoshǔ) which literally means Cat and Mouse. You might remember that there is almost no dialogue in the original American version. Not true in the Chinese dubbed versions which have Tom and Jerry talking almost non-stop. The talking is a little distracting at first, but after you get used to it you’ll see that it adds a whole new dimension of humor to the cartoons.

If you log on to one of the popular Chinese youtube knockoff sites like youkou or tudou and do a quick search for 方言 (fāngyán, dialect) you’ll see that some of the results that pop up on the first page are Tom and Jerry Cartoons dubbed in 四川话 (Sìchuānhuà, Sichuan dialect). If you surf for a while longer you’ll see that the cartoons have also been dubbed in tons of other dialects as well. Here are some links to a bunch of different 猫和老鼠 clips dubbed in different dialects:四川话: 河南话 东北话 兰州话 陕西话 潮汕话. Be forewarned that the video quality is generally not great on these sites. It would be awesome if they get up to speed with youtube sometime soon and start offering higher quality clips. If anyone knows of better Chinese video sites please share the links with us below.

About halfway through my first year at 山西农业大学 (Shānxī Nóngyè Dàxué, Shanxi Agricultural University) I decided to take a stab at learning some 四川话. So I asked around for students who came from Sichuan province that might be interested in tutoring me in some Sichuan dialect basics. Within a couple of weeks I had found myself a tutor. His English name was “Neat”. Neat and I used a couple of elementary 中文 textbooks and read through the dialogues in 成都话 (Chéngdūhuà, Chengdu dialect). I recorded my lessons and prepared a dialogue or two before each following meeting. After a while I asked Neat to speak only in 成都话 during our lessons, even when explaining the meaning of words or phrases. I enjoyed this type of instruction based on textbook dialogues, but I realized that I still didn’t have enough basic vocabulary under my belt so I asked Neat to bring in some cartoons and other movies.

After a while Neat and I started using Tom and Jerry cartoons as our main study material. We also watched a bunch of feature length movies featuring 四川话 (浮生, 疯狂的的石头, and 沿江而上) . An average lesson consisted of us watching the cartoons bit by bit, doing a lot of stopping and starting, giving me time to mimic the lines back and for Neat to correct my mistakes and explain the difficult parts. This method was great for learning some really basic phrases like “我饿了！(wǒ è le, I’m hungry), 这是什么？(zhè shì shénme, What is that?) , and 谁呀？(shéi ya, Who’s there?)”. It was also useful for learning a select group of phrases that tend to reoccur in slapstick cartoons like, “我要打死你！(wǒ yào dǎsǐ nǐ, I’ll beat you to death!), 我要收拾你！(wǒ yào shōushi nǐ, I’ll teach you a lesson!), and 打你的屁股！(dǎ nǐde pìgǔ, kick your butt!”).

There are a couple of problems with watching a whole bunch of Tom and Jerry cartoons as a study method. It doesn’t necessarily help you to learn many phrases that are actually useful in daily life. Another problem is that the voice actors in the cartoons don’t always speak a very standard style of the Chinese dialect. In the 四川话 Tom and Jerry cartoons there are three different voice actors who according to my teacher Neat, all sound like they come from different places in Sichuan, near 成都, but they sound fairly 土 (tǔ, not standard-speaking in a way that sounds like they come from a small village out in the country somewhere). The three voice actors often will have different pronunciations of the same word within a couple of seconds. For a good example of this check out the 四川话 version of 会飞的扫把 (huì fēi de sàobǎ, the flying broom) and listen carefully at 4:00-4:05 for when they say the word 飞 (fēi, fly). Tom says “huī”, then a second later Jerry says “fēi”. Apparently switching f and h is a fairly common occurrence in local dialects of 四川话. It is interesting to make note of small things like this when watching cartoons with a bunch of different voice actors who each speak their own type of non-standard dialects.

Watching dubbed cartoons can be a fun way to enhance your study program, but I wouldn’t suggest relying too heavily on it because of the limitations in vocabulary and the non-standard voice actors. Do any of you Skritter users out there use video as part of your study method? Are any of you working on Chinese dialects by way of cartoons or other videos?

Forming a 重金属乐队 (zhòngjīnshǔ yuèduì, Heavy Metal Band) in Shanxi Province

My idea was to form the first ever heavy metal band at Shanxi Agricultural University. The first order of business was to locate the musically talented metal heads on campus. The preferred method of announcing things was to make giant red posters with handwritten 汉字 on them and post them up all over the campus using a liberal amount of thick gluey paste. So I asked a Chinese friend to help me out with the text and calligraphy for the posters. Here’s what our end product looked like:



In case you can’t make out some of his 草体 (cǎotǐ, cursive style) characters, here is the text of the poster and a translation:


海报 (hǎibào)
Announcement:

一个疯狂的美国人 (yígè fēngkuáng de měiguórén)
A crazy American hopes to share

带着他那炽热癫狂的激 (dàizhe tā nà chìrè diānkuáng de jī)
his insane enthusiasm for starting

情望与农大学子组建本 (qíng wàng yú nóngdà xuézǐ zǔjiàn běn)
this school’s first heavy metal

校第一个重金属乐队 (xiào dì yígè zhòngjīnshǔ yuèduì)
band with students.

(招募：主唱吉他手贝斯手 (zhāomù: zhǔchàng jítāshǒu bèisīshǒu)
(recruiting: a lead singer,guitar player, bass player,

鼓手) 有意者请联系：乔杰明 (gǔshǒu, yóuyìzhě qǐng liánxì: Qiáo Jiémíng)
and a drummer) Interested parties please contact: Qiao Jieming

电话：6287286 (diànhuà)
by phone at 6287286

A couple of days after posting my ads I met my first prospective guitar player. “你好。我叫乔杰明” (Nǐhǎo. Wǒ jiào Qiáo Jiémíng, Hi. my name is Qiao Jieming) I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Hi,” he says in English, “Nice to meet you. My name is Hand.” I paused, thinking, “I’ve heard some pretty weird English names, but, really? Hand?” So just to be sure I asked him how he spells his name and he spelled it out for me, “H.U.N.T.” Not wanting to criticize his English pronunciation before we had even been properly introduced, I nodded my head in recognition and we got down to the business of the band.

My first question for him was what bands had he been listening to recently. This was part of my screening process. He mentioned the Backstreet Boys, Beyond (a rock band from Hong Kong popular in the late 80s and early 90s) and Westlife (An Irish ‘boyband’ style pop group). Hunt had already lost his chance at being in the band with his mention of Westlife (who’s smooth melodies and loverboy lyrics were the polar opposite of the type of heavy metal music I had in mind for the band. For a classic example of Westlife at their cheesiest, check out “Season’s in the Sun”, a song that was very 红 (hóng, popular, lit. red) last year in Shanxi Province.

For a couple of days I continued meeting a bunch of so-called metal enthusiasts who echoed Hunt’s musical taste. Luckily I did also meet a couple of true metal fans who put Metallica and Megadeth at the top of their lists. The band ended up as a three piece outfit with Dragon and me on guitars and Jack on drums. We had three original speed metal songs at the height of our rehearsal career. The band was short-lived because of our bad work ethic and also scheduling problems since Jack was already married and lived with his wife in 槊州 (Shuòzhōu), a small city a couple of hours to the North of the University.

As I went about choosing musicians for the metal band I became more aware of the “language power struggle” in friendships where both people are interested in practicing their 2nd languages. In my bandmates I was looking for heavy metal enthusiasts who were willing to speak Chinese with me. Hunt didn’t make the cut for two reasons: his musical taste and also because he insisted on only speaking English with me. In general during my time in 山西 (shānxī) I tried to become friends with people who were willing to speak with me in Chinese for at least part of the time. When I was getting to know a new Chinese friend, there was usually a period of time when we were still trying to figure out the right balance of English/Chinese to use in order to communicate most efficiently. It was always a delicate balance because I didn’t want to discourage my friends from learning English, but also I didn’t want to feel like I was being used all the time for English practice. On the flipside, I also didn’t want my Chinese friends to feel like I was using them all the time to practice my Chinese.

I’m wondering how other skritter users have navigated friendships where there is a give and take between Chinese and English(or other languages). What are your thoughts on the “language power struggle” in friendships?