@Alexander.lew,

BRILLIANT! I totally agree! The producers were trying to play it off as a joke, just poking fun at 老外's bad Mandarin! The only thing is, Bradley Cooper's Mandarin is SO bad (对不起 Echo) that it doesn't make sense at all and the joke is totally lost.

@echo

My theories: In the first sentence weijin (味精） certainly makes sense as MSG. My first thought for the waiter's reply was 味精会保护你的皮肤, because that is something I hear a lot. Not about MSG but some ingredient or another is good for you--though most people tend to use the word yang (养) in that context. However, it is clear the waiter says 衣服.

So, I have to agree with @alexander.lew I think it may be a bad attempt to translate bib (围嘴) which is something many people in the US choose to wear when they dig into lobster or crab. One question, since when are 龙虾 crabs? Considering the variety of shrimp, prawn, crawfish and lobster out there, maybe xiaolongxia (小龙虾？) is referring to something like that rather than 小笼包. Final question: why are you guys so certain that zang4 in zangfu has to do with funerals (葬) and not dirty (脏)? Again relating back to an insistence not to wear a napkin around his neck.

@Echo,

我这个死板的老外仍然觉得Bradley Cooper 就是叫服务员千万不要给他围巾啊！为什么呢? 因为谁会说，“千万不要给我味精”而不说“千万不要放味精”？

@Trevelyan,

My theory is, the waiter was once the co-lead in the story along with Bradley Cooper, however his shining moments have all but been left on the cutting room floor, as it were.

Since, through the course of the film Bradley Cooper's mind, given to intermittent blackouts and lapses of memory has forgotten his relationship to the waiter character. The waiter, however, with the insider information that Bradley Cooper will later on in the film, attempt to fake his own death, and understanding that he's in need of a 围巾 to protect his burial clothing, simply proceeded to advise him that, if he's to be buried later on in his fine dinner attire, must wear something to protect himself, thus the line, "围巾会保护你的衣服".

This will all be revealed in the 4+ hour hand signed and numbered special director's cut edition.

(我觉得在以上的理论里面是有道理的，可是到目前为止我却不太清除道理的那部分到底在什么地方。。。)

@Echo,

OK...我承认，服务员明明地说“味精”，所以说，服务员为什么说，“味精可以保护你的衣服”还是未解之谜。:(

I think I have the answer。 味精 (MSG) has long been considered an extremely unhealthy food additive, especially in the west. Whenever you go to Chinese restaurants in the U.S. they'll often have it posted "NO MSG." I think the waiter was referring to how food with MSG won't stain your clothing or something. People say the same thing about food without sugar. So, Bradley Cooper was making a joke. MSG might protect his clothes but it will also kill him. Hence, the "it will protect my funeral garb," comment.

@Xiao Hu

My reading and writing of Chinese is not very good - but I guess you are basically saying your brain hurts from thinking about why he would say that sentence? lol

How did you approach learning the characters in the first instance? Just memorisation? I've relied mainly on chinese word processors that change my pinyin into characters, but now I want to improve my reading/writing as I want to work in IT in China. One thing I do do to memorise characters (I don't know if this is normal or weird), is to make out pictures from them that are to do with the word - usually little stick men doing something relevant. i.e the word 黑 I remember because it looks like an evil space invader :D

@Gingersue4242,

The very best way to remember characters is through FIRST learning the components (214 radicals) through utilizing whatever mnemonic devices you wish to help you remember them. I like to do the same thing as you, remember the character by likening it to something else, (maybe like a Space Invader! hehe)

Once you have a fairly firm grasp on them, you can move onto combining them. I recommend from the outset, not just learning what they're called, but also how to write them, which should only take you a few days to a few weeks depending on how visually oriented a person you are.

The next step it to begin learning how to form them into characters. The great thing is that you can approach it in much the same way as learning to spell English words, because you just have to remember which parts the characters are composed of.

For example, once you have learned the character 空 kong1, remembering the character 控 kong4 is pretty easy because it's just two parts, 1- a hand 扌and 2- our original character 空.

There are other elements like proper stroke order 笔顺, but don't worry about that just yet, even if you dont write them in the proper stroke order, as long as your writing is ledgible that's fine.

The other thing is that the second part hints at the sound, so you can many times even guess at the pronunciation just from the second part of the character.

In truth, Chinese characters aren't as complicated as you might think, and you always have Chinese IME's to help you if you know how the character's pronounced.

What's the answer btw? Who were the three celebrities speaking Chinese?

youtube links aren't very useful for those of us without VPNs. What's with the aversion to posting a direct answer -- always another link.

@gingersue4242，

不客气. I also recommend that you learn simplified characters before tackling traditional because 健体 just so much more useful and practical.

Looking over what I wrote, maybe one point is a bit confusing. What I meant by learning in a few weeks is just the radical portion. One can learn 214 radicals quickly and then you've already got the basis of how to write every character, so the next step is just remembering the order of how they're laid out in a character.

EG: 骑 is made up of a horse, 马 ma3 the character for big, da4 大 and ke3 可, only three parts. When you understand the basic uniformity of the characters and how they're put together systematically, then understanding the method to write Chinese characters will become second nature, it will become like English, spelling NOT drawing.

@Echo，

我昨天出乎意料地问我朋友，“味精可以保护我们的衣服吗？”

她回答，“你说什么？我不懂！”

我又问，“味精可以保护我们的衣服吗？”

我朋友更糊涂又问，“你到底说什么？我不明白！你是说MSG吗？”

我故意的逗她玩说，“哦，我说错了，我的意思是，围巾可以保护我们的衣服吗？”

她答，“你说错了，你应该说，餐巾，不要说围巾。你说围巾那是错的！”

哈哈，所以说，“味精会保护你的衣服”和 “围巾会保护我们的衣服” 两句话都没有道理。

哦，对了，讲普通话的那些演员到底是谁啊？我很好奇！

@Echo,

我好想亲眼看看BRADLEY COOPER 的表情如何，我搜了网络已经很久一直没找到这部片子。百度，搜狗，搜狐，有道，搜搜里面都没有，一事无成。我很好奇！可是没办法看，唉！

I didn't recognise the first and the third actors, but I remembered the second line : )

Next time you should play clips with Sheldon Cooper's (The big bang theory) attemps to speak Chinese )))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24HNJv3FkU

And I remember that I was pleasantly surprised when I heard Shia Labeouf's quite ok Mandarin in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps".

@Echo,

最近我把学生拍起来为的是后来剪辑视频播放给学生看，问题是，我像你一样不太会用，I-Movie,我整个下午占用其他老师的苹果笔记本电脑但是一直剪辑不了，一无所获，哎！真可惜我原来的具有Final Cut Pro 的IMAC Pro的电脑坏了而落在美国了。

The Bradley Cooper mystery officially solved.... Thanks Stephen! :)

My name is Stephen Pucci - I am a British actor, and a big fan of your podcasts...

This may be very late, but... I can offer you an interesting insight into Bradley Cooper's Chinese in Limitless.

So, I am currently rehearsing for a play on Broadway, New York, called Chinglish by the American Chinese playwright David Henry Hwang.

Anyway, my role in the play is half in Chinese (I did my first degree in Chinese at Leeds University in England and at 天津师范大学), and one of my cast mates is the actor who played the waiter in the Chinese restaurant scene at the end of Limitless, Johnny Wu.

I just listened to this episode yesterday, and ran to Johnny to discuss what you and David concluded. Well, we laughed a lot, and wrote out what Cooper's character is meant to be saying, after he has ordered the food. There are mistakes, for sure, but this is it (we think!):

"...千万不要给我围巾." He means "Whatever you do, don't give me a bib/serviette [presumably because it would make him look silly in front of his hot girlfriend]," Bib/serviette, the kind that you would tuck into the top of your shirt when eating, has been translated here as 'scarf'.

The waiter then says: "围巾会保护你的衣服." All good...

Then Cooper says: "可是不会保护我的肮脏手." So, "But it won't protect my dirty hands [referring to all the bad things he has done up until that moment in the film].

Anyway, thought this might be interesting for you guys!

Thanks for the podcasts - keep them coming.