Short words and lack of context

[imron]

Native Chinese I have spoken with who are basically illiterate, i.e., they can't read. Talking with them is the same as talking to someone who can read.

Is this a function of their Chinese, or your Chinese? What level of conversation are you having with them?

[knickherboots]

I can provide the example of a middle-aged Chinese woman I talk to several times a week. Her job is basically domestic work such as cleaning and cooking, but our conversations have ranged over a variety of topics, such as cultural differences, food (who doesn't talk about food in China?), family matters, and a legal problem her son faced. My oral Chinese skills are pretty good for a non-native, testing at advanced-high level through an ACTFL assessment in 2002. And I speak Chinese at home with my wife about 30% of the time, though her English is fluent. I don't have an exact measure of our ayi's level of reading and writing skills, but she claims that she has very limited writing skills. And, though she can read, she seems to have a relatively small written vocabulary, and has made a point about this. Although my conversations with her are not extremely sophisticated, we certainly use a relatively broad vocabulary. Likewise, there are interesting cases of independent business owners in the United States who built successful businesses without being able to read and write, and compensated for this in various ways that did not reveal this "handicap."

[imron]

Reading and writing are not the same, and writing skills diminish over years/decades of non-use. Reading skills do too, but people will tend to read more than they write. I know several people who struggle to remember how to write even simple characters, but who still read the newspaper everyday, after all, recognising a word that is already written down is far easier than trying to recall it from scratch by yourself.

[renzhe]

If your argument is that it is possible to reach fluency without reading, I would agree (provided sufficient immersion), since all languages are primarily spoken. But you seem to be claiming that reading does not affect one's vocabulary, and I don't agree with this. It's simply much faster to read 10 books than to hear the equivalent amount of material spoken, and it's easier too.

I've also heard of many less educated native speakers who have trouble following advanced topics.

After you cover the basic everyday vocab, the vast majority of vocabulary you acquire comes from reading. You can be completely fluent, but unable to discuss specialised topics such as philosophy or politics, and acquiring the necessary vocabulary is MUCH harder without reading.

Wikipedia seems to agree:

In first grade, an advantaged student (i.e. a literate student) knows about twice as many words as a disadvantaged student. Generally, this gap does not tighten. This translates into a wide range of vocabulary size by age five or six, at which time an English-speaking child will know about 2,500–5,000 words. An average student learns some 3,000 words per year, or approximately eight words per day.[7]

After leaving school, vocabulary growth reaches a plateau. People may then expand their vocabularies by engaging in activities such as reading, playing word games, and participating in vocabulary programs.

Your example with your ayi might not be the best one, because you talk about everyday topics, which is something I expect any native speaker to be good at. You could try the following experiment: play the audio for this TV show to her and see how much she understands. This show is not easy for native speakers, because it uses lots of vocabulary you rarely hear spoken in everyday life.

[creamyhorror]

Native Chinese I have spoken with who are basically illiterate, i.e., they can't read. Talking with them is the same as talking to someone who can read.

I don't have an exact measure of our ayi's level of reading and writing skills, but she claims that she has very limited writing skills. And, though she can read, she seems to have a relatively small written vocabulary, and has made a point about this.

This example doesn't prove your first statement at all, as has been pointed out. Like your ayi, my grandma can barely write in Chinese, but she reads the paper every day and can converse about most things.

The point here is that learning characters is crucial for acquiring advanced vocabulary, since the latter is largely available through reading.

Likewise, there are interesting cases of independent business owners in the United States who built successful businesses without being able to read and write, and compensated for this in various ways that did not reveal this "handicap."

This whole discussion has been partly predicated on the hypothesis that Chinese is actually harder to learn than English/other languages on average due to the number of homophones and the role of characters in distinguishing between homophones. So giving cases of English speakers being able to communicate decently without being literate doesn't really prove anything about Chinese.

[songlei]

Here's a nice example of some Chinese news speech that is just totally incomprehensible. When I listen to this, I just cannot imagine how anyone could ever understand it. It's just one big mystery to me. Be warned though, if you want to stay motivated, you'd better not click on this

http://tw.nextmedia.com/animation/index/video_artid/33148872/video_issueid/20110129

[creamyhorror]

Here's a nice example of some Chinese news speech that is just totally incomprehensible. When I listen to this, I just cannot imagine how anyone could ever understand it. It's just one big mystery to me. Be warned though, if you want to stay motivated, you'd better not click on this

http://tw.nextmedia....ssueid/20110129

The anchor has a significant Hongkong accent (backed up by it being from Apple Daily), such that he pronounces certain characters with different tones from the usual ("一个含冤 一个含恨" pronounced as han3 yuan1...han3 hen1/4). That could be contributing to your lack of comprehension. But it's probably more just the fast clip and unfamiliar vocab that's tripping you up. Get the vocab down and listen more and you won't find stuff like this totally incomprehensible, I'm sure.

edit: Wow, that's a seriously sad story.

[knickherboots]

renzhe: Just to clarify, I'm not claiming or implying that reading has no effect on vocabulary, or that it is a poor method for developing an advanced vocabulary. Likewise, I agree that reading can be an efficient way to develop a broader and more sophisticated vocabulary. My main point is that people who want to improve their aural and oral skills should focus on, well, listening and speaking. And reading has a place in this, too. My own technique is fairly rudimentary: when I come across a target term in a written text--something I don't understand, or something I understand but cannot pronounce--I check the pronounciation and repeat it to myself, almost always aloud and sometimes in the context of a phrase. I write down some of these terms in an alphabetical vocab list with a stroke index for head characters whose pronounciation is difficult to remember. It would be best to review the catalog periodically, but I'm too lazy to do that, just becoming more familiar by perusing a section when I add a new term. And I must confess that I truly do love written Chinese. What is a little sad to see is people who have huge vocabularies in written Chinese, yet are helpless when it comes to basic daily conversation. (I experienced this phenomenon firsthand many years ago when I hung out with other foreign students in Beijing.)

creamyhorror: I think that the first issue you raised is that I misinterpreted my ayi's language skills by conflating reading and writing skills. Is that right? It's true that I have not subjected her to formal or informal language exams and am largely relying on a vague self-assessment about her reading skills. But, then again, I never claimed or implied that someone who can't write is also unable to read. Neither did I test the well-spoken gentleman I met while traveling who claimed he was unable to read. Illiteracy is often considered shameful, especially in places like China that worship education. (For an article about a successful Chinese businessmen who bemoans his lack of book learning, see here http://money.sohu.co...274239516.shtml.) But we really seem to be talking about two different angles of a topic. The mere fact that most people develop their understanding of words like "精审" or "hermeneutics" through written sources doesn't obviate the need to think about how written texts should be used to improve listening and speaking skills. The first issue is how most people learn advanced vocabulary. The second is figuring out the best way to master such advanced vocabulary in speech. I advocate consciously oralizing it by whatever method works (e.g., repeating aloud, silently, or set to music).

[Guest realmayo]

Going back to the original post, I run into this all the time and feel a bit less stupid after reading what you wrote!

But maybe in that respect it's no easier for Chinese people trying to learn English. Spoken in a casual, quick, offhand way, "Can you give me a bit of paper?" could sound more like "Canyu gimmya bitta pay per" and might then require a distinct mental process to unravel the syllables (versus the mental process described in the posts). Over time and exposure people get used to these, as I guess learners of Chinese gradually get used to hearing 拿 + noun used in the sense exampled above.

[xiaocai]

The anchor has a significant Hongkong accent (backed up by it being from Apple Daily)

It sounds more like Taiwan accent to me. TVBS is a Taiwan channel and the website is Apple Daily Taiwan.

But if you have always been listen mainland news only you make find that it can be difficult to understand Taiwan narrators and presenters in the beginning, because not just the accent but also the choice of words is marked different sometimes. I think this is common to all languages (at least to all pluricentric languages), it takes time to "switch" your brain to understand the accents you are not familiar with.

[fanglan]

I completely agree with the hypothesis that there simply must be more context for Chinese people to understand. I am also, as many people here, perplexed on a daily basis on how I can't understand simple things. I can follow a conversation. And then ridiculously easy things throw me off. When I moved to Taiwan from the mainland, I had a rough time with the lack or rrrrrr's. I bought a yogurt at a store one day after just a few weeks here. The clerk said simply 'xiguan.' I was caught off guard, but then thought that this nice lady, who had sold me lots of stuff in my short time, was probably asking me if I was adjusting nicely. Obviously she was asking if I wanted a straw. 北方人will usually add a nice thick rrrr to 吸管兒. Does anyone have a preference on posting using traditional or simplified? Should I do both? Another moment of confusion was when I was trying to ask if something needs to be reasonable? And I simply said 需要道理？ And my friend said "you need to stand on your head?" 需要倒立。 She admitted later that she was just taking the piss out of me cuz I missed my tones, but it does really go to show that tones matter.

So, the thing that throws our conspiracy question is that Chinese people seem to understand each other. Even with simple, curt responses. Anyone who thinks that tones don't matter has not gone far enough in study. You can totally miss the tones on something that is easy to understand. Other times you have to be quite careful.

As far as the uranium thing goes, as with a lot of other Chinese, while 鈾 would be understood in written language, if you asked someone simply in speaking 有沒有鈾, they would have no idea that you were speaking of uranium. If you were a native English speaker, there is no way the same sentence could be confused. Do you have any uranium. If someone had a poor accent, it might be confusing. But even a native Mandarin speaker would not be understood in the sentence I wrote above. So there is definitely another character or two that get tagged on to make it clear when the context does not.

Struggle on!!!

[ThePeaMonster]

Have you ever learned another language than Mandarin? Because these problems are no way unusual, learning any language requres endless hours of listening practice.

[L-F-J]

Much of Chinese internet slang is wordplay impossible to express in spoken Chinese and is only understood because of the particular characters used when written. For example, 砖家 and 叫兽 to mock so-called 专家 and 教授. They share the exact same pronunciations and tones in spoken Chinese, and so can only be understood in written form.

Whereas in English, whether we write it or speak it we can understand the wordplay. For example, words like democrazy, shitizen, livelihard, harmany, etc.. It's the same sort of wordplay as in the above Chinese examples, but not just the spelling but the pronunciation is slightly changed to make the joke. Chinese just doesn't have the freedom of pronunciation to do that. They are confined within their own pronunciation limits, just like the Chinese "innernet".

[Wang7]

Great thread: I feel your pain. I have been engaged in this endeavor for three years now, and have progressed tremendously with my reading comprehension. However, my listening ability is lacking in comparison because of my inability to differentiate monosyllabic words in the first and second tone during conversations. Sometimes I understand, but most of the time I don't. .Another factor that hinders my inabiltiy to comprehend conversation is Chinese word order. It takes awhile, even if I'm familar with the vocabulary used during the conversation for me to figure out what is being implied.

[davoosh]

Fanglan, I think you are seriously underestimating the importance of context in every language (not just Chinese) - yes it is possible that certain phrases are likely to be more ambiguous in Chinese when out of context due to the number of homophones, but nothing that can't be dealt with.

As for your example, 'do you have the uranium?' - well, when is this sentence naturally likely to occur? The answer is almost never, or only in a highly specific context in which the people are likely to already know what is being spoken about!

I think part is just getting used to the spoken language as most people have said; by simply practicing and practicing your listening skills. Also, bear in mind that most spoken language does contain a limited vocabulary and you'd know the context when more elaborate language is being used.

Hope this helps

[fanglan]

The Peamonster. I had studied a bit of French and Spanish, but never to any sort of fluency. Nothing more than tourist Spanish. I did study a semester of Hungarian in Hungary. Listening was definitely a challenge as well, but I do remember words being more distinct. Certainly all spoken language is fast and complex.

Also, Wang7 and Davoosh. I would like to stress a couple of realities that I have been dealing with lately. First of all, there is definitely a big distinction made between written and spoken Mandarin. When I study new words, I try and figure out the correct context that it might be used. I used to teach teenagers English, and I have seen how difficult it is to use words correctly and naturally. For example, lets say 'content'. I am content with my life. The word is natural here, and it requires the preposition 'with' to make it correct. I would get sentences like 'I am content life.' 'I am content money.' The point is that I try to avoid this when I learn vocabulary. So, I ask Chinese friends if they use this word, and in what situation they would use it. I constantly got the answer 'this word is usually only in written language.' Huh??? Have I ever responded this way the the same question about an English word? Are there any English words that would only be seen in written language? I don't think so. Certainly not to the degree that I have experienced here with literally hundreds of words that have been delegated to strictly written language. Interesting???

Yes, interesting. But why? More importantly, however, is why? I am still in the theorizing part, but it seems to be more clear. One example of this is the two words 評介 and 憑藉（评介 和 凭借） They share phonetic sounds, both being ping2jie4. I was asking my tutor about 憑藉. She told me that it was more often seen in written language, and that 評介 was more commonly used when speaking. At first I was thinking this was one of those times when different characters with the same sounds are used, but the meaning is still the same. As she continued, I realized that she meant that there were two different words, with different meanings, and the one I wanted to use 憑藉was not common in spoken language because it would be easily confused with 評介. I have encountered this situation dozens of times where I am told that it would be better to use another word simply because it will be easier to understand. 到底, it seems that one must be more careful when choosing words when speaking because they can easily be confused with other words that have the same, or similar sounds. Of course this happens in every language. My contention is that it happens more in Chinese do to a lack of sounds(which I believe this thread is about?) I think I read something like 1500 possible syllable variations in Chinese (shi, zhi, de, bu, zu) compared to English which has something like 8-9,000. This would invariably lead to confusion, would it not? Hence, in order to avoid this confusion, Chinese in written and spoken form can be quite different.

This is the second point(lack of possible sounds) that I was trying to state before using the uranium example.

Davoosh said 'Fanglan, I think you are seriously underestimating the importance of context in every language (not just Chinese) -

Actually the point I was making is that the English sentence does not require any context. If you ask someone 'Do you have any Uranium?' They will understand you. Definitely. They may look at you strangely. They may ask you to repeat it just to make sure they got it right because the question is odd. But, this question would not be understood in Chinese. And my initial thought, that uranium must have some other character with it to make it more clear, was just struck down by my Chinese friend. She said it is simply 鈾。So, the sentence 你有鈾嗎 would most like get an answer pertaining to gasoline or cooking oil. The whole point of the example I made above(about uranium) is that without context, it is not clear.

I am not trying to argue here. I am just trying to get my head around this language. What I am seeking is advice from anyone who has felt the same frustration that I am dealing with now. And offer some advice/knowledge to anyone who is just getting started with this language. Anyone looking to vent about their difficulties learning Chinese(or any other language for that matter) will have sympathy from me, and I would be interested in hearing about them. And If I can offer any advice or encouragement, I will. For anyone who thinks they will never get the tones, don't worry. You will. Wang7, try listening and listening to the same passage again and again. 20-30 times without the text to help you. You will start to pick them out.

Quick note on the lack of sounds I talked about above. This is particularly frustrating for me as I have recently moved from the Mainland to Taiwan. The sounds here are reduced even further as most speakers dont 'curl their tongue' to produce distinct x/sh/s or z/zh/j sounds, and they often leave the 'g' off the end of words, so shang becomes shan(actually san), cheng becomes chen. If Chinese is your first language, this adaption is easy. But for a learner, I automatically assume that I am hearing a new word. When my friend tells me that she wants to go to the su1 ju4, I immediately start searching my brain for a first tone su character that I have learned. The only thing I come up with is 蘇 as in 蘇醒, or revive/awaken, but this doesn't offer much help. Haha. Any former mainlanders have this problem? su1ju4 is bookstore, by the way. 書局（书局）SHHHHHHHU1ju4。

Everything helps, advice, advice, advice always welcome.

[davoosh]

Yes it is true that a Chinese would probably not understand "你有鈾嗎" out of context and this does happen more often in Chinese - but I don't think you should let this discourage you. The reality is that 90% of spoken language *does* occur in context and if you bear that in mind you may find it easier? Also, if someone asked in English 'do you have uranium?' out of context, you're still just as likely to get 'what??' as a response, asking for clarification.

[陳德聰]

I'm confused by the huge blob of text by fanglan in #36.

Do you own a bat? baseball or flying mammal

They lined up. queued up or aligned

I like space. outer space or distance in relationships

He moved. because he's still alive, or because he wanted a bigger house

I find it odd that you think English does not have any problems with homonyms, but I can understand what you're getting at. Chinese is a high context language and English is a low context language. This is not so much a problem with vocabulary and grammar as it is with culture. I found it interesting to read that French is a high context language, but apparently it is!

Basically this means having to rely more on what you know about a situation and the person you're speaking to when you're speaking. It can be hard for people who are used to having most of the information in communication handed to them pretty explicitly, but this should be a pretty widespread issue for learners of Chinese who come from a low context background. I think in high context communication there is usually some element of in-group vs out-group, where the in-group will have no problem deciphering messages with very few words that carry a lot of information, but the out-group will be completely oblivious.

My suggestion would be to try your best to put yourself into the in-group's mindset and try to understand the culture as much as possible while you're trying to learn Chinese. Speaking another language is not the same as just translating all of the sentences in your head directly into that language, it is about learning to communicate in that language the way people who speak it do.

Though to be fair, mainlanders and Taiwanese speakers can get confused with each other sometimes, but not that often ('cause they're still pretty much part of the same in-group). A further suggestion for dealing with lack of retroflex consonants would be to remind yourself that when you hear "su" you should be parsing for possible "su" and "shu" syllables. Of course, knowing that your friend enjoys reading and might want to buy some books would help in knowing that sūjú corresponds to 书局.

[li3wei1]

Are there any English words that would only be seen in written language?

I've only ever seen the word 'zany' in writing (or perhaps someone reading from a script), and even then it is only used in the context of descriptions of movies, books, and television programs. I simply cannot imagine a native speaker saying "that party last night was really zany!"

[陳德聰]

Do people actually say "however" out loud? Or "furthermore" or "therefore"? "Thus"? "Henceforth"?

Actually curious.