There are plenty of Chinese textbooks that claim to teach basic Chinese but are in fact utterly useless in everyday situations like the one we found ourselves in about a month ago, when our new colleague Nicole arrived back from lunch slightly the worse for the wear....Nicole had just crossed the threshold and was bending over to take off her shoes when Echo, having successfully maneuvered herself behind the coffee table, finally broke the ice. "Did you have a good lunch," she asked? "Oh lunch," Nicole faltered. "I almost forgot all about that in the excitement...."
ckw4y
said on March 2, 2010
I can neither confirm nor deny an incident involving fake blood all over the inside of my company's elevator last Halloween...
orbital
said on March 2, 2010
Nice! I've always considered the word blood heavily underrepresented when it comes to beginner textbooks. I humbly suggest the following example sentences as examples of how this sort of stuff can be incorporated into casual daily conversation:哦，是你的血吗？Oh, is this your blood?啊，我的血啊！Ahh, my blood!小心，有血。Be careful, there's blood.Oddly enough, I've used at least one of these in the past week. Leave you guessing as to which one.... ;)
LanZi
said on March 2, 2010
@orbitalThe conversation must have been like this:A: 小心，有血！（Be careful, there's blood）B: 不是你的血吗？(Isn't it your blood?)A: 啊，我的血啊！(Ahh, my blood!)
MoNigeria
said on March 3, 2010
I usually hear blood as "xuè", when would you hear it one way or the other?
Echo
said on March 3, 2010
@sambowden,
There are two pronunciations of this word 血. When it is used alone and in spoken language, it should be "xie3". Like 这是谁的血？When it is used in a word (usually in a professional name) or chengyu, we say "xue4".Like in these words -- 血液(xue4ye4,blood),血管(xue4guan3,vein),血浓于水(xue4nong2yu2shui3 -- Blood is thicker than water). Sometimes you will hear people say "xue3" as well, but the pronunciation is wrong.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Brendan
said on March 4, 2010
@Echo - I am very certain that I once heard someone -- a native speaker of Mandarin! -- pronounce 血债血还 as "xiě zhài xuè huán," but nobody ever believes me when I say this.
Gail天堂的声音
said on March 5, 2010
@Brendan,
haha, because you are wrong, it should be xuèzhài xuèhuán，喵~
LanZi
said on March 5, 2010
@BrendanI believe you. I hear native Mandarin speakers make funny pronunciations all the time. Hmmm...can't come up with any example right now. But I do believe you. There's no way one can make this "xiě zhài xuè huán" up. Too funny. Except that once I said 厕儿所(ce4r suo3). They made fun of me for a whole year after that.
Brendan
said on March 5, 2010
@Gail - I know what it *should* be -- but that's not what this native speaker of northern-accented Mandarin said!
@LanZi - Heaven knows I make plenty of laughable mistakes in my pronunciation -- all the time! What interests me, though, is the mistakes that native speakers make, because I think they can often be very revealing about the language and about the way native speakers conceptualize the language.
LanZi
said on March 5, 2010
@Brendan我觉得像 "xiě zhài xuè huán" 这样的普通话母语者会犯的错误，除了是咬到舌头的口误之外，就应该是跟普通话的推广有关系。因为普通话本来就不是自然语言，是语言学家创造的规范语言，其中修改了一些原来方言中的读音，所以很容易让母语者混淆：到底是“xiě”还是“xuè”。这可能也是为什么北京人也要为了像“普通话等级考试”这样的考试做准备：很大一部分的儿化和发音都和他们从小说的不一样。
Gail天堂的声音
said on March 5, 2010
@LanZi, @Brendan,
没错儿，普通话和北京话并不是完全一样的，而且，我们参加“普通话等级考试”的时候说话的口音和现实说话的口音是不太一样的，哈哈，因为普通话太规范了，从而导致没有人说。。。我有点儿怀疑，普通话等级考试考的到底是不是普通话。。。
maslit98
said on March 9, 2010
@EchoI have a question about pronounciation. I've noticed some people, especially women, pronounce the "x" in xue3 as "s" e.g. sue3 雪, sing2 行, dan1sin1 担心. It goes for 南方人 as well as for 北方人. I'm curious to know about the causes that lie behind that transition.Thanks for a great website!Cheers, Dunderklumpen
Echo
said on March 10, 2010
@maslit98,
Thanks for your kind words about the site!
Generally speaking, that problem is not very common on 北方人. However, some 北方人 may also have the problem affected by their local dialects. There are so many local dialects in China, so it is possible.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
maslit98
said on March 10, 2010
@Echo
谢谢Echo老师。The dialects make it even harder, if possible, to learn chinese. 我今天跟一个中国朋友上网了，看中文网站。朋友住在瑞典(我的老家)十年多了，有一些汉字他忘了。我们看着网站他突然叫"中文麻烦死了"！I second his opinion ;-)
Echo
said on March 10, 2010
@maslit98,
哈哈，你的故事太有意思啦！
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
lauracdaniell
said on May 3, 2016
You guys are hilarious! I showed your web site to my friends who are not learning Chinese and now they talk about you all the time!
