Popup Chinese

Elementary: Father, why must you dress up like this every Wednesday?

A comedy-mystery-thriller laced with father-son conflict and a subplot involving the Transportation Security Administration, "Father, why must you dress up like this every Wednesday" is a masterpiece of contemporary drama that defies categorization while calling attention to the all too human costs of airport security theater.

Learning Chinese? Our dialogue today is about as fast as they get at the Elementary level. Our focus is on how to tell others to mind their own business using one of a number of common and fairly short phrases. We cover a variety of polite and not-so-polite ways of doing this, and we'll admit that two of our selections are ultimately a bit vulgar. That said, they're worth knowing about, if only to understand the recent upsurge in Chinese Internet ornithography.

drummerboy

said on

February 29, 2012

I guess my dictionary needs updating because it says 鸟人 is a person who trains and enjoys birds. :-)

Seriously though, tons of useful terms in this lesson.

Echo

said on

February 29, 2012

@drummerboy,

哈哈，千万别在中国叫“鸟类爱好者”鸟人....

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

benjameno.irwin

said on

March 2, 2012

What is the function of 成 in 穿成 here? I can't find 穿成 as a single entry in a dictionary, so I assume 成 is some kind of productive suffix.

Echo

said on

March 2, 2012

@benjameno.irwin，

It's a verb complement meaning "to become". You can see 穿成 as to wear (this kind of clothes) and become (like this).

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

andrew.lim

said on

March 5, 2012

Hi Echo,

Hope you are well.

I'd like to hear you talking in Chinese more than in English. Even though it is in Beginning lesson. As it is a Chinese lesson, you should talk more in Chinese even for chit chat, so that we can learn more. For lower level may be speak a bit simpler and slower Chinese.

Thanks.

Xiao Hu

said on

March 5, 2012

@Echo, David, Brendan,

I may be wrong about this but isn't 鸟 a character with multiple readings? In the context of the lesson, shouldn't it be read as diao3? And when it's read as diao3 it means exactly the same thing as...that...other character that...means...uh...you know...

Echo

said on

March 6, 2012

@alim495,

Thanks for your suggestion! I will try to add in more Chinese in future.

@Xiao Hu,

Haha, actually yes. However, people don't usually read 鸟 as diao3 now, since it's really really really not polite. They just use niao3 instead.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

Brendan

said on

March 7, 2012

@Xiao Hu -- yes, 鸟 is a 多音字. IIRC, the pronunciation 'niao3' emerged out of taboos against 'diao3,' by the same process that turned 入 into 'ru4' instead of 'ri4.' If you've got access to a good library, the linguist 李荣 had an article about the latter, 《論“入”字的音》, that would be worth checking out. (Short version: If you ever heard "狗日的" and wondered what the sun had to do with anything -- it's really just standing in for a rude application of 入.)

Xiao Hu

said on

March 7, 2012

@Brendan,

Yes, quite a few southern dialects still retain the allusion to the sun 日 in the altered context, which apparently also includes 南京话 as evidenced from a scene in 金陵十三钗 where one of the girls was threatening to do something with a Japanese soldier's 老祖宗 that had something to do with the sun.

BTW: I think that 金陵十三钗 is redemption for a string of bad 张艺谋 movies like 三枪拍案惊奇 (nonsensical) and 十面埋伏 (completely hollow festival for the senses). I suspect that the new film was made more meaningful because it was based on a novel, (not a 科恩兄弟 film) as most of the greatest 张艺谋 films have been.