Tone mistakes

[Quest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mugi

Yeah, a lot of the vocab doesn't match, but by far the greater portion does. And it's this greater portion that allows native Taiwanese speakers to make the necessary connections.

http://pinyin.info/readings/mair/taiwanese.html

nope. I'd post some relevant quotes but I'm not sure if I can spam up the thread with large blocks of text if it's not really on-topic

Even Koreans and Japanese share the majority of their vocabulary with Mandarin. It seems to me Mugi knows at least 3 Chinese dialects. I know two, and I would say yes to that very statement. I think I learned Mandarin by association. That's why dialect speakers would mispronounce some words in Mandarin, and they can't distinguish zcs/zhchsh, n/ng. They never learned Mandarin as a new language, but rather just by association.

[wai ming]

I agree with Mugi and Quest. No matter what some scholars say about Chinese dialects/regionalects/languages not being mutually intelligble or completely unrelated, in practice, many dialect speakers are able to 'pick up' other 'dialects' due to the fact that a lot of the vocab does match.

I've hardly learnt any Cantonese, but I can often understand what I'm hearing based on my knowledge of Mandarin. Context also helps when it comes to the few words which don't match. The same goes for when I read Korean (again, I haven't learnt much at all): when I come across a word which comes from Chinese, I can usually guess what it means, based on the connections with Chinese.

[Mugi]

Originally posted by Ferno

nope. I'd post some relevant quotes but I'm not sure if I can spam up the thread with large blocks of text if it's not really on-topic

Haven't had time to read the entire article yet, but at the risk of remaining off-topic, what I will say is that while Mair has given a fair overview of why Taiwanese hasn't developed a written standard, he hasn't really discussed why a standard can't be developed.

I've been learning Taiwanese for about 3 years now, so have had a reasonable amount of contact with other foreigners learning the language as well as native speakers. A couple of things I've noticed: Foreigners often like to emphasize the difficulty of writing Taiwanese. Sometimes I think this is to lend credence to their claim that Taiwanese as a language is inherently difficult and thus any mastery they have of it should be viewed as a significant achievement. Sometimes this emphasis is purely out of ignorance. Native speakers on the other hand will also often claim that Taiwanese can't be written (in Chinese characters). This is due either to the fact that they've never given the issue any serious thought (too influenced by the concept that only Mandarin can be written in Chinese characters), or more often than not there is a not so obscure political agenda at play: not using Chinese characters is an important tool to break links with mainland China (never mind the fact that the language originated in mainland China and it has every “right” to be represented in Chinese characters.)

There are some other things I would like to comment on regarding what I've read of Mair's article, but I think we should start a new thread (that is if you're interested in discussing the whys and wherefores of writing in dialect).

Originally posted by Ferno

Everytime i hear about using a bunch of homophone sound-alike characters to write down a dialect, i wonder why they don't just use an alphabet insead of using characters just for the sake of using characters.

Couldn't agree with you more! But the same is true of Mandarin. Firstly, it employs "a bunch of homophone sound-alike characters" (albeit that most of them have been "standardized"); secondly, it would be much more efficient to write Mandarin in a romanized form.

Originally posted by Ferno

1. a single morpheme (charcter) can have several meanings which are not always very related, 2. and that same morpheme will share the exact same pronounciation with several others different morphemes (characters). They don't become clear until you see the characters....I'm am curious as to whether or not someone who has not learned characters is aware of these connections. ie, would a child not going to school yet know that the "ju4" in "wan2ju4" (toy) is the same "ju4" in "ju4you3" (possess)? When I thought about it, I found it impossible.

You're missing the point again. Making sound (including tone) associations has nothing to do with the "written word". When learning another dialect you don't need to match every single cognate - matching cognates simply reinforces the sound associations you've already made. And the issue is even simpler when it comes to "tone associations" between dialects. Take a native Cantonese speaker learning Mandarin: he/she would soon realize that their high level/falling tone (1st tone - not that most people think in terms of 1st, 2nd, 3rd tone etc – it’s done on a subconscious level) equates to the Mandarin high level tone (1st tone), their rising tones (2nd & 5th) equate to the Mandarin dipping tone (3rd), their mid and low level tones (3rd & 6th) equate to the Mandarin falling tone (4th) and their low falling tone (4th) equates to the Mandarin rising tone (2nd). Simple. Only 4 (or 6, depending on how you look at it) connections.

[HashiriKata]

You're missing the point again.

I don't think Ferno's missing the point, but he has been thoroughly poisoned by the nonsense he read at pinyin.info/readings.

Ferno, the only chance for you to be rehabilitated back into the sensible world is to look at the reading stuff gathered there and ask yourself what pinyin.info is trying to tell you, and what would be the agenda they have behind it. (Otherwise, your path to mastering Chinese would be full of unsurmountable obstacles )

[Ncao]

or more often than not there is a not so obscure political agenda at play: not using Chinese characters is an important tool to break links with mainland China (never mind the fact that the language originated in mainland China and it has every “right” to be represented in Chinese characters.)

I know I'm getting off topic, but I think if the Taiwanese separatists want a language that has no connection with China they should choose one of the aborigine languages.

[Quest]

How do you express foreign or dialectal accents in Chinese?

他说: "你是澳洲人吗"?

Tā shuō: "Nǐ sì Àozōurén ma"?

versus

Tā shuō: "Nǐ shì Àozhōurén ma"?

or difference in pronunciation of 中国 (中國):

Zung1gwok3, Tiong1kok4 and Zhong1guo2

How do you express London or New York accent in English?

[Ferno]

I don't think Ferno's missing the point' date=' but he has been thoroughly poisoned by the nonsense he read at pinyin.info/readings.

Ferno, the only chance for you to be rehabilitated back into the sensible world is to look at the reading stuff gathered there and ask yourself what pinyin.info is trying to tell you, and what would be the agenda they have behind it. (Otherwise, your path to mastering Chinese would be full of unsurmountable obstacles ) [/quote']

I don't understand at all

[Ferno]

How do you express London or New York accent in English?

Standard American English:

A perp is a perp is a perp.

New York English:

A poip is a poip is a poip.

[Ferno]

You're missing the point again. Making sound (including tone) associations has nothing to do with the "written word". When learning another dialect you don't need to match every single cognate - matching cognates simply reinforces the sound associations you've already made. And the issue is even simpler when it comes to "tone associations" between dialects. Take a native Cantonese speaker learning Mandarin: he/she would soon realize that their high level/falling tone (1st tone - not that most people think in terms of 1st, 2nd, 3rd tone etc – it’s done on a subconscious level) equates to the Mandarin high level tone (1st tone), their rising tones (2nd & 5th) equate to the Mandarin dipping tone (3rd), their mid and low level tones (3rd & 6th) equate to the Mandarin falling tone (4th) and their low falling tone (4th) equates to the Mandarin rising tone (2nd). Simple. Only 4 (or 6, depending on how you look at it) connections.

Okay your "Zung1gwok3, Tiong1kok4 and Zhong1guo2" example - how does a person know the "kok4" is the same meaning as the "gwok3" or whatever? Even if they can make a tone conversion, they have no knowledge of the actual morphemes. You don't speak in numbered tones alone

[zhwj]

There are two ways to approach it, Ferno.

1) Assume relationships exist between two languages, and look for similarities. Since the various local Chinese languages have long been considered dialects of each other, this assumption is often made, and words in two dialects that bear a resemblance to each other are assumed (mostly correctly) to be cognates.

2) Learn a second language, and at some point arrive at the realization that there are certain patterns of relationship that arise. Many local Chinese languages are related in this way; a learner will "pick up" for want of a better term, the sound relationships. After a certain point, the speaker can make guesses at how things are pronounced, and can guess at what certain unknown words may mean.

Sure, there will be errors and mistaken guesses, just as an American assuming a British accent makes pronunciation errors based on the regular patterns of change they assume.

As for morphemes, once someone arrives at (2), they tend to assume (1) - that is, while it's certainly possible for the word meaning [China] in Cantonese and Mandarin to follow the same basic sound pattern changes while being made up of separate, unrelated morphemes in each language, it's much simpler to simply assume that if the words follow the sound patterns, then the constituent morphemes are related as well. [Yes, there are exceptions, like the 臺灣 Mair points out in the article, but those merely provide entertainment...]

Re: the pinyin info article - one bit touched on briefly in the article - the idea of "literary readings" and "reading pronunciations" actually can be used as an explanation of how speakers of other local languages create the correspondence between their language and Mandarin.

Though instruction in Mandarin is required in schools across the country, in actual practice most classes are conducted to one degree or another in the local dialect - this includes reading and recitation (either because the instructor is not proficient in Mandarin, or because the students aren't proficient enough to follow Mandarin instruction). Reading of texts is often done using the local pronunciation of the characters of standard written Mandarin - not Mandarin, but not the local language, either, since grammar and vocabulary differ.

Here's an interesting article on the different registers of speech that people understand and use in different situations.

[atitarev]

How do you express London or New York accent in English?

You could express a non-standard accent (London and New York are quite standard) by showing using the sounds how they are pronounced. For instance, if one wants to imitate a Russian/German, whatever accent, you could say, Vat do you vant wiz zis? English is not so phonetical either.

Are there any means of showing accents or speech defects in Chinese Mandarin?

[Luoman]

QUOTE]Are there any means of showing accents or speech defects in Chinese Mandarin?[

You may write something like 表酱紫 for 不要这样子 and others，but i think such things are more common in European literature, where authors use the ability of phonetical languages to express different variants of pronunciation to make the language of a novel more vivid. I saw similar examples in modern Chinese literature, but they are not too many.

[HashiriKata]

London and New York are quite standard

I live in the UK and I think over here, the term "London accent" often refers to the Cockney accent, which is NOT standard (It's a socio-regional accent: working class East-enders).

[Quest]

Standard American English:

A perp is a perp is a perp.

New York English:

A poip is a poip is a poip.

Then, how do you say "A poip is a poip is a poip." in NewYork?

You could express a non-standard accent (London and New York are quite standard) by showing using the sounds how they are pronounced. For instance, if one wants to imitate a Russian/German, whatever accent, you could say, Vat do you vant wiz zis? English is not so phonetical either.

Are there any means of showing accents or speech defects in Chinese Mandarin?

李缩森摸？

[atitarev]

李缩森摸？

->

Lǐ suō sēn mō？

你说什么?

Nǐ shuō shénme?

This is cute, thanks, Quest! The reader should probably be prepared for the phrase to be phonetical transription only.

[kudra]

Then, how do you say "A poip is a poip is a poip." in NewYork?

This is taking the thread farther off topic but since I am responding to comments by a bona fide Part-time Moderator....

I think that is a New Jersey accent. (or a Joisy accent). So your question might actually

be How do you say that in New Jersey? I'm not from there so I'm a bit unsure.

Anyway, this reminds me of a long drawn out joke where this Sea-World animal keeper has to bring a couple of dead sea gulls to feed to some porpoises. The porpoises won't mate without first eating the sea gull meat. A lion has escaped from the state zoo and fallen asleep in the path of the keeper. So he steps over the sleeping lion and is arrested by police for:

Crossing a state line with 2 girls for sexual purposes.

And how is this relevant?

I guess with the Jersey accent, purposes and porpoises would both be pronounced "poi-pus-es"

[Quest]

This is taking the thread farther off topic but since I am responding to comments by a bona fide Part-time Moderator....

I was taking the day off, you should check with the administrator.

[Ferno]

ah I see Kudra, in Jersey-hua "line" would also be pronounced "lion" and girls would also be pronounced "gulls"

[kudra]

Ferno:

I am not sure about the Jersey-hua ness of line-lion, girls-gulls. In fact I kind of doubt

this part of the pun is Jersey-hua.

My only claim as to the relevance of Jersey-hua was with regards to purpose-porpoise-poipus.

If you have seen any Three Stoodges episodes, think of Curly's accent.

[Ferno]

i think the joke was intended to include "lion" and "gulls" as well.. :o