Language: English | 中文
Last week, I went to Beijing with my family, for the Chinese new year holidays.
We joined a group. I'm sure you know what this means, so I won't spend time explaining the dulliness of the frequent visits to some local companies, lisitening to staffs promoting their products, blah-blah-blah.
What made the trip wonderful is, despite some products prmoting routines, we travelled to Beijing by train, through Jingguang railway (Jing: Beijing; Guang: GuangZhou). Indeed it was wonderful, the journey on train, but I will go through this part later in another post.
Here, I'll begin with the topic, language.
I lived in Taipei for eight years. I grew up there. As a result, I can speak Mandarin. Even so, I never learnt that Mandarin and Putonghua are actually two different languages until I took a Putonghua course in college (In my opinion, Mandarin is a Chinese language spoken by Taiwanese and foreigners, since they both call the language "Mandarin." Putonghua is more restricted to Mainlanders and some foreigners. As you can see, usually someone from the US wouldn't say "I speak Putonghua" but "I speak Mandarin" instead).
So, how different are they?
First, their sound. There are many words that are supposed to sound the same in both languages but actually not. For example, in Putonghua, Che (車, car) is pronouced this way (IPA): [tʂɤ], but you'll find Taiwanese or most of the foreigners pronounce the word this way: [tʃə]. Another example is that for the word He (河, river), Mainlanders pronounce it like this: [xɤ], while Mandarin speakers do it this way: [hə]. One more example. The word 和, in Putonghua, it is pronounced this way: [xɤ], but the pronunciation is totally different for Taiwanese: [han], when the word implies "and" as in "A and B."
Besides the sound, sometimes, they use different words to call the same things. But this does not matter at all. Usually you can easily grab the meaning even if you speak only one of them.
So, what surprises me is the way they say it. As you know, I grew up in Taiwan, so, when I ask someone "what are you lookiong for," like in a store, I would say "你在找些什麼呢" (ni zai zhao xie shen me ne? / Literally: you are looking for what?), or "有什麼可以幫忙的嗎" (yao shen me ke yi bang mang de ma? / Literally: Is there anything that I can help?).
Then, in this situation, in Beijing, my mother told me, you may find people saying "看什麼看" (kan shen me kan?). Well, for me, this sounds rude and this is just like saying "what the X are you looking at" in English, and I would snort or crack myself up right away I hear it.
Another case. During our journey in Beijing, one day we went to a restaurant to have 涮羊肉火鍋 (Shuan Yang Rou Huo Guo) as our dinner. This is a type of Hot Pot but containing a lot of goat meat (Yang Rou means meat of goat, and Huo Guo is Hot Pot).
So, after we had found a table, we ordered some tea. Then a waitress said, "喝什麼茶啊" (he shen me cha a? / Literally: what tea are you drinking?). I was expecting to hear something like "請問要喝些什麼茶呢" (qing wen yao he xie shen me cha ne? / Literally: then what tea would you like to have?), but what I heard was just like "why are you drinking tea", or even "what on earth you think you can drink tea here". This sounded rude and hilarious and I tried my best not to but laughed, with my face turning to the other side, pretending to talk with my brother.
See, if you think Mandarin and Putonghua are the same, as my professor says frequently in class: think about it.
上個禮拜，跟家人去了趟北京。
嗯，我們是參加旅行團的……所以，就是，很多什麼購物行程，一會兒去去這家藥場，一會兒去去那邊看看玉 (還有貔貅、同仁堂、景泰藍、蠶絲背)；這些我就不花時間敘說了。
縱使是如此，這趟旅途還是很值得回味的，因為我們是搭火車過去的……搭京港直通車，延著京廣鐵路行駛。像是去北京的那一趟，路經湖南的時候是沒水沒電的；最後到達北京，已經晚點八個多小時了……不過，這麼精彩的東西，還是留到下次再跟大家分享吧。
還是回到正題好了：說說這次旅途，聽到大陸人們，用普通話表達一些問題的方式。
之前聽我媽說，他去大陸的時候，逛了逛家電鋪，店員看到了，就會丟一句：「看什麼看」。我媽覺得很奇怪。後來有問一問當地朋友，才了解到，原來這是「您有需要看些什麼東西嗎」的意思。
嗯，這我本來還不大相信的，不過這次在北京，有一天晚上，我們去吃了涮羊肉火鍋 (東來順)。坐下來後，要點茶；服務員就有點凶凶地說：「喝什麼茶啊？」……媽呀，我當下真的噗嗤笑出來了……嗯，根據那位當地朋友的公式換算，我想她是在問：「請問您是要喝哪一種茶呢？」……
有夠好笑的，就好像，想要點壺茶喝，卻被罵個臭頭一樣……
Last week, I went to Beijing with my family, for the Chinese new year holidays.
We joined a group. I'm sure you know what this means, so I won't spend time explaining the dulliness of the frequent visits to some local companies, lisitening to staffs promoting their products, blah-blah-blah.
What made the trip wonderful is, despite some products prmoting routines, we travelled to Beijing by train, through Jingguang railway (Jing: Beijing; Guang: GuangZhou). Indeed it was wonderful, the journey on train, but I will go through this part later in another post.
Here, I'll begin with the topic, language.
I lived in Taipei for eight years. I grew up there. As a result, I can speak Mandarin. Even so, I never learnt that Mandarin and Putonghua are actually two different languages until I took a Putonghua course in college (In my opinion, Mandarin is a Chinese language spoken by Taiwanese and foreigners, since they both call the language "Mandarin." Putonghua is more restricted to Mainlanders and some foreigners. As you can see, usually someone from the US wouldn't say "I speak Putonghua" but "I speak Mandarin" instead).
So, how different are they?
First, their sound. There are many words that are supposed to sound the same in both languages but actually not. For example, in Putonghua, Che (車, car) is pronouced this way (IPA): [tʂɤ], but you'll find Taiwanese or most of the foreigners pronounce the word this way: [tʃə]. Another example is that for the word He (河, river), Mainlanders pronounce it like this: [xɤ], while Mandarin speakers do it this way: [hə]. One more example. The word 和, in Putonghua, it is pronounced this way: [xɤ], but the pronunciation is totally different for Taiwanese: [han], when the word implies "and" as in "A and B."
Besides the sound, sometimes, they use different words to call the same things. But this does not matter at all. Usually you can easily grab the meaning even if you speak only one of them.
So, what surprises me is the way they say it. As you know, I grew up in Taiwan, so, when I ask someone "what are you lookiong for," like in a store, I would say "你在找些什麼呢" (ni zai zhao xie shen me ne? / Literally: you are looking for what?), or "有什麼可以幫忙的嗎" (yao shen me ke yi bang mang de ma? / Literally: Is there anything that I can help?).
Then, in this situation, in Beijing, my mother told me, you may find people saying "看什麼看" (kan shen me kan?). Well, for me, this sounds rude and this is just like saying "what the X are you looking at" in English, and I would snort or crack myself up right away I hear it.
Another case. During our journey in Beijing, one day we went to a restaurant to have 涮羊肉火鍋 (Shuan Yang Rou Huo Guo) as our dinner. This is a type of Hot Pot but containing a lot of goat meat (Yang Rou means meat of goat, and Huo Guo is Hot Pot).
So, after we had found a table, we ordered some tea. Then a waitress said, "喝什麼茶啊" (he shen me cha a? / Literally: what tea are you drinking?). I was expecting to hear something like "請問要喝些什麼茶呢" (qing wen yao he xie shen me cha ne? / Literally: then what tea would you like to have?), but what I heard was just like "why are you drinking tea", or even "what on earth you think you can drink tea here". This sounded rude and hilarious and I tried my best not to but laughed, with my face turning to the other side, pretending to talk with my brother.
See, if you think Mandarin and Putonghua are the same, as my professor says frequently in class: think about it.
