Guest mirela_violeta Posted May 27, 2003 at 04:22 PM Report Posted May 27, 2003 at 04:22 PM Did it ever happen to you that you start mixing up the languages and you don't realize when you change the language? It happens to me and it's funny and annoying at the same time. It first started while I was in Germany and I was talking english with my english friends. They got tired of german faster than me, and sometimes I didn't even realize that I started talking in german. Then I often found myself at my chinese classes saying Ja instead of dui, and lately because I've been paying a lot more attention to chinese I find myself saying dui instead of yes or Ja. I never mix a foreign language with my native language,romanian( which is a lot like italian, being a latin language) thank god for that, but I mix them one with the other, and at least with gernan and english it isn't because I don't know how to speak properly. That used to happen to me in chinese a lot so I would immediately shift to english with my chinese teacher. But when the new chinese teacher came a year ago and we discovered she couldn't speak an english word it all changed. At first we couldn't speak at all, didn't understand much either, though we knew about 2000 words. She talked so fast, it seemed to us. Then we started understanding her and because I just love talking I started talking with her in chinese, you should have seen the words I used. I wasn't able to say a tone right. God knows what she understood. I once said I killed a man, I don't remember what I wanted to say though... Then as I payed more attention to the tones and as I developed my conversational skills it got better and better. Now I can speak almost anything with her and I really understand her and she seems to understand me. That's a good sign I think. For our exam in conversation, everyone used to prepare the topics and just learn them by heart in order to be able to say something at all. This year I was too lazy to do that anymore and it was better cause I could speak my mind without having written anything . Even my chinese teacher was surprised at that. Well if you have similar experiences it would be interesting if you shared them with me. I bet you native english speakers mix up english with chinese all the time. That is at the beginning. I saw that in Germany, how they mixed english with german . I've got to tell you it's quite funny to listed to a mixed language like that. I've enjoyed that very much, it was better than at the cinema.I wonder which sounds better english-german or english-chinese. English-chinese has to be great though. Write me about that and if you could give me examples how you mix english with chinese I would be very pleased. Quote
roddy Posted May 28, 2003 at 03:21 AM Report Posted May 28, 2003 at 03:21 AM I had a similar problem when I was living in Spain and failing miserably to learn Catalan. I've never mixed up English and any other language, but I was constantly blurting out Chinese when I wanted to speak Catalan. Quote
Guest sjj17 Posted May 28, 2003 at 11:35 AM Report Posted May 28, 2003 at 11:35 AM Hi I have experienced that many times. My first foreign language was French at secondary school which was fine, then came latin which was okay because that was just translation into English. Then German which started getting confusing with the French, dropped it after one year. After that I did a few months of Italian and then went to Mexico and studied Spanish. In Mexico I was using French German and the one or two words that popped into my head from Italian and it was great fun, I kept guessing words right. Now comes Chinese which is horrendous because I cant guess any words but I keep saying random words from other languages. Im really going to have to sit down and get one off though then perhaps Ill stops getting that muddled with the others :? . I have never mixed in English though, except of course when Im being lazy and talking to the people here who speak plenty of English but thats on purpose . SJ Quote
smithsgj Posted May 29, 2003 at 07:52 PM Report Posted May 29, 2003 at 07:52 PM I'm so relieved I thought it was just me! I'm English and I was talking French to some travellers in Tibet and my Taiwanese companion was listening but not understanding anything. Afterwards she said it was funny but French sounds quite like Chinese doesn't it. I said no not really why? She said well all those little words like "dui" and "hao" and "ba" all seemed to be the same. But French doesn't have any "dui" and "hao" and "ba", I said. Yes it does, she said, you were saying them all the time! Quote
andreabt Posted June 11, 2003 at 01:28 AM Report Posted June 11, 2003 at 01:28 AM I've had two different types of experiences with this. I took two years of Spanish in high school. Couldn't remember most of it if you held a gun to my head. But when I was first learning Chinese, I can remember grasping for words I hadn't learned well or at all, and sometimes coming up with the Spanish equivalent. When I came back to the States after my first year in China, my parents thought I had lost my mind. I would frequently insert Chinese words as I was used to in China ("Stop being such a shagua" or "shima?") or using Chinglish I'd heard my students and friends use too frequently, like adding the phrase "you understand" at the end of statements which my parents clearly did not understand (for example, "In China, only a fool would wear a green hat") The worst was when I caught myself saying "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" a lot. I remembered hearing my students say this in English a lot, and realized they were thinking in Chinese "Dui, dui, dui, dui." I also caught myself saying "dui" far too often Quote
channamasala Posted July 14, 2003 at 08:12 AM Report Posted July 14, 2003 at 08:12 AM I studied French for six years before coming to China, and between the two studied Tamil (a south Indian language). I never really mixed up Tamil and Chinese, although when trying to demonstrate some Tamil to my students I would have to really think first or Chinese would come out. But sometimes I do screw up Chinese and French...especially when trying to speak to my coworker in French, usually the Chinese will slip in, and not the other way around. Est-ce tu penses ma? Je suis hen hao! Quote
roddy Posted July 14, 2003 at 10:33 AM Report Posted July 14, 2003 at 10:33 AM Est-ce tu penses ma? As you've made it a question with the word order, you don't need 'ma'. Try C'est tu penses ma?, and you should be understood . . . Roddy Quote
channamasala Posted July 14, 2003 at 10:46 AM Report Posted July 14, 2003 at 10:46 AM Dan shi, zai Zunyi, mon Zhongguohua changera au cause des dingdi influences, he suoyoude Zunyi ren dou demandent yi ge wenti utilisent "ma" - c'est n'importe que la phrase you meiyou le structure d'un wenti... oh screw it. i think i'm about to blow a linguistic fuse... Quote
pfff Posted July 22, 2003 at 11:47 PM Report Posted July 22, 2003 at 11:47 PM yeah its the 'ma' thing that messes me up. Im always making statements in english and trying to change them into a question at the last minute: "You're chinese - right?" "The plane is going to be late - right?" God thats annoying... Quote
ChouDoufu Posted July 23, 2003 at 04:16 PM Report Posted July 23, 2003 at 04:16 PM It's a truly aggravatign phenomenon. When I first started studying Japanese again I would want to say stuff and Chinese would come out, but graduallly that problem went away. Since I've been reveiwing more Chinese recently (since I'm going back to BJ ) It has once again affected my Japanese. Now, often times when I'm saying a phrase with a measure word I'll say the number and the measure word in Chinese occasionally. It really confuses people. The mistake I'd always make when I spoke english was, "I'm going to the store to mai3 ____" instead of saying "buy". They sound pretty similar and have the same meaning! Quote
wix Posted July 23, 2003 at 11:03 PM Report Posted July 23, 2003 at 11:03 PM When I went back to Taiwan after almost a year in Thailand I felt the need to add "krup" to the end of every sentence in Chinese. (krup is a polite particle used at the end of sentences in Thai). These days I sometimes use the Minnan word gong for the verb "to speak" instead of the Mandarin jiang when I am speaking Mandarin. Quote
Guest Humani Posted August 24, 2003 at 03:36 PM Report Posted August 24, 2003 at 03:36 PM yeah its the 'ma' thing that messes me up. Im always making statements in english and trying to change them into a question at the last minute: "You're chinese - right?" "The plane is going to be late - right?" God thats annoying... I do that as well! only with 'or' instead of 'right'. I first started doing it when I was chatting online in German, after my GSCEs (highschool), when in german they were using 'oder' /'or' at the end of the sentence for 'isn't it' aren't they' don't you...etc. in english they would use 'or' and i used it too. when i started learning mandarin (I don't know much) i started using 'or' when i was speaking too, to english and chinese people. It's especially bad, because I'm talking to chinese people who are learning english,a nd i should stop, or they'll learn it wrong from me. Quote
Guest Anonymous Posted December 20, 2003 at 02:16 AM Report Posted December 20, 2003 at 02:16 AM Aww man! Let me tell you. I confuse languages all the time! My native languages are English and Cantonese (born in US, but parents from HK). I took five years of Spanish in Jr. High and HS, one semester of Mandarin in college, and now I am studying Japanese because of a fetish. =P Anyways, I get those last three confused constantly, especially with Spanish and Japanese, since they both have those vowel endings. Ohayo, senorita bonita! Ni hao ma?! Ni de kuruma wa muy rapido! Ching wen, shiao jie... el bano wa doko desu ka? Quote
pazu Posted December 22, 2003 at 07:53 PM Report Posted December 22, 2003 at 07:53 PM Haha, what a funny thread here. When I was in China I sometimes had to speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English in 5 minutes, so I just messed them up, one day I asked my Australian friend if she could lend me her Lonely Planet for a while, she looked so startled and I wondered why she looked so startled, anyway I was just asking her for her book, not for her bed! But then after a while, she told me, "You're speaking to me in Chinese again!" Oh, and at that time I was speaking Cantonese........ Quote
ax Posted December 23, 2003 at 03:07 AM Report Posted December 23, 2003 at 03:07 AM I think mixing up languages is not new. I suspect there is two reason why we mixed up languages. 1. 你 are trop well in deux langues, and you know 你的 counterlocuteur also understand todos los lenguajes tu parles. 2. 你 are learning un langue to a certain extent, mais non pas conversational assez, and start with un otro lenguaje. The second one is my case. 我的 cantonese 很糟糕. Now that I started learning 台灣話, everytime 我 want to speak 廣東話, it was 台灣話 that came out. Four years ago: 毎一度日本語を話したい, c'est francais que sorti sur ma bouche :-( ax Quote
芳芳 Posted January 2, 2004 at 02:12 PM Report Posted January 2, 2004 at 02:12 PM Hehe... How does this 问题 sehr oft arrive!! My mother langage is french, then I learnt english an german, and I remember having mixed the 2. After when I started chinese, I replaced some chinese words in my german sentences...very funny! And recently, I have taken japanese, and I really do mix it with german and chinese. I remember an evening at the german ambassy in Beijin with a german, and a finnish. We decided to speak german as common language. Oh gees I spoke more chinese than german, though I could understand everything they were saying...Their eyes were quite as big as this: Ah lala! Damned tour de Babe (or the Ziggouratt as you call it)l!!! But it would be so flat without these little things! Quote
confucius Posted January 2, 2004 at 04:57 PM Report Posted January 2, 2004 at 04:57 PM oo la la duzi! Quote
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