Feedback on Mandarin Video Draft

[yakeyglee]

Hey all. I'm putting together a short video presentation in Mandarin for a speech competition. It's currently a draft, so it's by no means anything super formal at the moment, though I would greatly appreciate any feedback you could give me in terms of grammar, pronunciation, information, etc. The goal was to, in 1-3 minutes, introduce yourself as well as talk about some aspect of Hong Kong. My preliminary video is below. Thanks in advance to those who give feedback! :-)

A copy of the script that I was reading off of for this is below (also in the video description).

大家好！中文名字叫康明，健康的康，聰明的明。現在我會介紹自己，告訴你們爲什麽香港的文化真的是中國的最有意思的。

我是二年級的大學的學生。七月我二十嵗。夏天住在紐約，要不然在馬薩諸塞州佈蘭戴斯大學上學。專業是物理和數學，而且愛聽説普通話。在傢我和父母說英文，而且我學西班牙語­，法語，普通話。因爲每天世界成爲越來越小, 我覺得聽説外國話非常重要，再説有用。

現在，讓我説明一下爲什麽我覺得香港的文化有那麽意思。香港的文化不只是亞洲的文化，真的是世界的文化。東文化和西文化都是香港的文化。想到香港的文化的時候，知道對人民­藝術很重要，城市和名勝古跡都真好看。香港人常常還用繁體字。我覺得繁體字比簡體字漂亮，再説清楚和一點兒好玩兒看。好像文化差不多不錯啊！

名字叫康明。多謝看完我的視頻。

[malanting]

Unfortunately Youtube is blocked in China. I've modified your self-introduction. Words in bold are my modification (words deleted not included). I can't understand the words in red. Another thing is that you don't necessarily need to point out you enjoy speaking 普通话. Just say 中文 and that's enough. The same is true in English. Say Chinese rather than Mandarin.

大家好！我的中文名是康明，健康的康，聪明的明。现在让我介绍一下自己，并告诉大家为什么香港文化是中国最有意思的。我今年大二，七月就二十岁了。夏天我住在纽约，要不然在马萨诸塞州布兰戴斯大学上学。专业是物理和数学，而且爱听说中文。在家我和父母说英文，我还学西班牙语，法语和中文。因为每天世界都变得越来越小, 我觉得听说外语非常重要，也很有用。现在，我说一下为什么我觉得香港的文化有那么意思。香港的文化不只是亚洲的文化，更是世界的文化。东西文化都是香港的文化。一想到香港文化，就知道对人民艺术很重要，城市和名胜古迹都很好看。香港人常常还用繁体字。我觉得繁体字比简体字漂亮，更具体说是好玩儿。好像文化差不多不错啊！名字叫康明。多谢看完我的视频。

[L-F-J]

Your pronunciation has a lot of typical American accent in it. For example, Americans always pronounce 觉得 like "jway de". It should be more like "jweh de", like the short E in "effort". Also in words like 文化 and 人民 it is like you're pronouncing the pinyin with English sounds. So wenhua sounds like "win hua" instead of "one hua", and renmin "run men" instead of "run mean"... In words like 年 don't over emphasize the I sound, otherwise you make it sound like two syllables. 夏天 was smoother.

[L-F-J]

二年级的大学的学生 can be rewritten 二年级的大学生 or 大学二年级的学生 or malanting's very concise suggestion of 大二.

[malanting]

二年级的大学的学生 can be rewritten 二年级的大学生 or 大学二年级的学生

Well, 二年级的大学生 still sounds awkward to me. As a whole sentence "我在上大学二年级" will do. But if you use the pattern "我是……学生" then 大二 (or 大学二年级 without 的）would be the best choice.

[L-F-J]

Well, 二年级的大学生 still sounds awkward to me.

Really? What's awkward about it? Just a feeling?

Being non-native, I may lack that language sense but a Google search yields 120,000 results on it.

[malanting]

Really? What's awkward about it? Just a feeling?

Just that we don't say it in this way. I tried googling it, but most of the results separate 二年级 and 大学生.

You're not a native speaker? Your Chinese is so good that I though you are.

[yakeyglee]

malanting - Thank you for the edits!

Another thing is that you don't necessarily need to point out you enjoy speaking 普通话. Just say 中文 and that's enough. The same is true in English. Say Chinese rather than Mandarin.

In all honesty, I would have chosen 中文 over 普通话 naturally, though just in the way that the contest description rules were, they specified to have the video in "Mandarin/Putonghua", so I just did that for sake of following the example. I may change it back to 中文, though...thanks for pointing that out.

Your pronunciation has a lot of typical American accent in it. For example, Americans always pronounce 觉得 like "jway de". It should be more like "jweh de", like the short E in "effort". Also in words like 文化 and 人民 it is like you're pronouncing the pinyin with English sounds. So wenhua sounds like "win hua" instead of "one hua", and renmin "run men" instead of "run mean"... In words like 年 don't over emphasize the I sound, otherwise you make it sound like two syllables. 夏天 was smoother.

Thank you for these suggestions. They are very helpful! I will definitely practice these words.

And regarding the change of 我是二年級的大學的學生, could I just attach 二年級 on the end of the other sentence where I talk about school? (This is taking into consideration your suggestion, malanting, of 我在上大学二年级.)

夏天住在紐約，要不然在馬薩諸塞州佈蘭戴斯大學上學二年級。

Using 年級 properly was one of those sentence structures I was never 100% sure on so it's nice to have some clarification on the way to make it sound right now.

[yakeyglee]

Malanting - Also, what is your take on the distinction between 再説 and 更 when connecting two parts of a sentence? I always learned 再説 as like ", and what's more...", but I see you swapped in 更 in a few places.

[陳德聰]

Maybe. But I don't think of Shanghai dialect when someone says "Chinese". Just like you won't say "talk in RP".

For the purposes of this contest I would say using 普通话 is much more prudent than just 中文. Perhaps skylee can come in and let us know, but I imagine in HK they would prefer you to say 普通话 than imply that Cantonese is not part of 中文... Although I guess that's just a matter of politics that I might be overly sensitive to. When someone says they speak "Chinese" to me, I ask them "what (kind of) Chinese?", but that may be a product of me being overseas.

As for your video & speech, the parts where 再说 became 更... I read 再说 as closer to "besides" although "and what's more" sounds fine too... If I translate your original sentences to English using 再说 it seems kind of odd:

因爲每天世界成爲越來越小, 我覺得聽説外國話非常重要，再説有用。

*paraphrasal: Since the world's getting smaller every day, I think foreign languages are important, and what's more, useful.

Sounds a bit weird in English. 也 does the trick.

香港的文化不只是亞洲的文化，更是世界的文化。

Here in malanting's, the 更 is for showing that not only is it Asian culture, but it's more than that: it's world culture.

我覺得繁體字比簡體字漂亮，再説清楚和一點兒好玩兒看。

I don't agree with the correction from malanting on this one, as when I try to translate word-for-word back to English from this part I arrive at: "I think traditional is prettier than simplified, and besides, clearly(?) and(?) a bit fun to read."

Malanting's correction would make it "and more specifically", but I get the sense that you are using 再说 to express something like "and also" (which it doesn't really do). May be another time for 也 to come out and play.

The parts malanting highlighted in red really don't make sense. After I listened again to your emphasis, I think you were going for...

"When I think about Hong Kong's culture, I can tell that art is very important to people"

一想到香港文化、就知道对香港人来说艺术很重要、...

But I can't figure out the 好像文化差不多不错啊！

"Seems like culture is pretty much not bad a!" >.<

For the speaking part, I would suggest pausing or taking time to regroup after sentences/long parts of sentences. I noticed that when you tended to jump right into the next sentence, you would make tone mistakes on the first word. Also, it might help to have someone break up the sentences into manageable parts of text that should be read in one go just to make sure you don't pause in the middle of phrases or words. Some examples were "而且爱听说普通话", where I almost thought you were speaking Chinglish: "而且 I(我) 听说普通话". Also 马萨诸塞州 sounded like you said 马萨诸塞州se(tts?? ), dunno if this was just a slip but you repeated it when you commented at the end.

And a note about the name at the beginning and the end... I wouldn't really bother with saying your "Chinese name" is 康明 unless you gave them your English name too. I'd just go with 大家好、我是康明。。。 我是康明、谢谢大家。Tying the end of your speech into the beginning can be a good tactic to help them remember you.

[gato]

Well, 二年级的大学生 still sounds awkward to me.

Really? What's awkward about it? Just a feeling?

”二年级“ is a noun, whereas the phrase above is using it like an adjective.

[陳德聰]

Well, 二年级的大学生 still sounds awkward to me.

Really? What's awkward about it? Just a feeling?

”二年级“ is a noun, whereas the phrase above is using it like an adjective.

Not sure that is particularly true since X年级的学生 is not an ungrammatical construction and is perfectly natural-sounding in other contexts.

[yakeyglee]

陳德聰的評論：

As for your video & speech, the parts where 再说 became 更... I read 再说 as closer to "besides" although "and what's more" sounds fine too... If I translate your original sentences to English using 再说 it seems kind of odd:

Quote

因爲每天世界成爲越來越小, 我覺得聽説外國話非常重要，再説有用。

*paraphrasal: Since the world's getting smaller every day, I think foreign languages are important, and what's more, useful.

Sounds a bit weird in English. 也 does the trick.

Quote

香港的文化不只是亞洲的文化，更是世界的文化。

Here in malanting's, the 更 is for showing that not only is it Asian culture, but it's more than that: it's world culture.

Thanks for this feedback—definitely very helpful! I do agree that 也 would be a more direct way to get my idea across, and your explanation of the usage of 更 makes sense to me.

The parts malanting highlighted in red really don't make sense. After I listened again to your emphasis, I think you were going for...

"When I think about Hong Kong's culture, I can tell that art is very important to people"

一想到香港文化、就知道对香港人来说艺术很重要、...

But I can't figure out the 好像文化差不多不错啊！

"Seems like culture is pretty much not bad a!" >.<

Okay, yeah, I think those were probably my worst sentences... written really late at night. haha Basically, what I was trying to say for the first one was "When I think of the culture of Hong Kong, I know that art is very important to its people." I'll probably just scratch that for a simpler construction. The second sentence was trying to be like "The culture almost seems perfect!"...I'm sure now it'll be more obvious to see what I was thinking when I wrote that. Any feedback on how to phrase this one better?

For the speaking part, I would suggest pausing or taking time to regroup after sentences/long parts of sentences. I noticed that when you tended to jump right into the next sentence, you would make tone mistakes on the first word. Also, it might help to have someone break up the sentences into manageable parts of text that should be read in one go just to make sure you don't pause in the middle of phrases or words. Some examples were "而且爱听说普通话", where I almost thought you were speaking Chinglish: "而且 I(我) 听说普通话". Also 马萨诸塞州 sounded like you said 马萨诸塞州se(tts?? ), dunno if this was just a slip but you repeated it when you commented at the end.

Thanks for the tips. :-) And yeah 馬薩諸塞洲 and 佈蘭戴斯大學 are both pronunciation approximations. Do you think it might just be clearer for me to say those parts in English? Or perhaps just switch out 馬薩諸塞洲 with 美國 in the case that 馬薩諸塞洲 isn't really that widely known?

[malanting]

yakeyglee

夏天住在纽约,要不然在马萨诸塞州布兰戴斯大学上学二年级。

This would make going to school sound like a choice rather than something you do regularly.

I took another look at the sentences and make it like this: 我就读于马萨诸塞州布兰戴斯大学，今年上大二，七月就二十岁了。夏天不上课的时候住在纽约。

It would sound more natural.

Using 年級 properly was one of those sentence structures I was never 100% sure on so it's nice to have some clarification on the way to make it sound right now.

Some examples: 我今年上大学二年级/ 我是大学二年级学生/ 我在读大学，今年上二年级。

Also, what is your take on the distinction between 再説 and 更 when connecting two parts of a sentence? I always learned 再説 as like ", and what's more...", but I see you swapped in 更 in a few places.

香港的文化不只是亚洲的文化，更是世界的文化。 This means "not only" "but also". It's not just Asian culture, but world culture as well.

再说 would be followed by a sentence(that's why 再说有用, 再说+ adj. won't do. At least it should be 再说也很有用, but still sounds a bit weird) and is often used when trying to persuade someone. 我们还是明天去吧，明天不下雨，再说又是周日，不会堵车。

You can also use 也是世界的文化 in this sentence.

[imron]

夏天不上课的时候

I wonder if perhaps 暑假 might be a good word to work in to this somewhere..

[malanting]

imron

I wonder if perhaps 暑假 might be a good word to work in to this somewhere..

But if you say 暑假, then certainly there should be no class.

Seems to me that he's talking about the whole summer rather than the summer vacation.

The difference between Shanghainese and Mandarin is far more than just pronunciation.

I think the main difference IS pronunciation. American English and British English differ mainly in pronunciation (and some expressions like pants). That's the same with Shanghainese and Mandarin. In Shanghainese we say 明朝 for 明天, 上半天 for 上午. But almost all of these can be written in Chinese. It's just that the difference in pronunciation is such that often you can't understand it if you're not a local.

[count_zero]

You shouldn't introduce Youtube videos - it's too painful sitting through that before the actual point of it starts.

Just start straight away without a long introduction.

[imron]

Seems to me that he's talking about the whole summer rather than the summer vacation.

Well, I guess we need to wait for the OP to confirm, but as a student, why would he go back to New York for the summer if not because of the summer vacation?

[L-F-J]

Well, 二年级的大学生 still sounds awkward to me.

Really? What's awkward about it? Just a feeling?

”二年级“ is a noun, whereas the phrase above is using it like an adjective.

Not sure that is particularly true since X年级的学生 is not an ungrammatical construction and is perfectly natural-sounding in other contexts.

Using a noun as an adjective is a common occurrence in Chinese. I don't know why that would make it sound awkward. The only thing I can imagine is that 二年级 is coming before 大学.

But then 二年级的大学生 yields 202,000 search results on Google.

＊年级的大学生 yields multiple similar results of 四年级的大学生, 高年级的大学生, 不同年级的大学生, 每一年级的大学生, etc..

[陳德聰]

@imron

I think perhaps since in North America "summer vacation" and "summer" are the same thing for students, I would prefer 暑假. It also eliminates any ambiguity, since he couldn't go home to New York unless it was summer vacation anyway. (I agree with you)

@yakeyglee

I know they are transliterations of the English names, and the people watching your video will know that as well. What I was referring to was the way you say Massachusetts in Chinese. I was trying to be funny, because you seemed to add an extra syllable at the end that sounds like "sē" so I put a se(tts) because I wasn't sure if your extra syllable was coming from being used to pronouncing Massachusetts. I hope that clears it up...

As for "When I think of the culture of Hong Kong, I know that art is very important to its people.", this seems like a logically strange sentence in English to me so perhaps it could use some revamping. For "The culture almost seems perfect!"... I would perhaps rethink that one as well. How about something like, "the culture is amazing!" or "Hong Kong culture really moves me." or something cheesy like that that doesn't imply the culture is somehow missing something it would need in order to be perfect.

@malanting

As for 上海话 and 普通话 differing only in pronunciation, that is simply false. Any assertion that 吴、粤、闽 and Mandarin are the same language is equally false.