Chinese - English, Figuring Out Mistakes

When I hear a Chinese/Taiwanese person totally screw up an English sentence- a word- a saying- I can usually figure out what they are talking about, or at least I try, suggesting various options in a yes or no fashion. When I mess up a Chinese word, even if I am holding that object in my hand- I often get blank stares and silence.

Is this everyone’s experience? Are Chinese speakers less creative in this way? Is it because of all the synonym type words? Whats up with that?

I think many learners of Chinese are familiar with this phenomenon, which has a few different causes. But I’d also say that it depends to a large extent on the person in question - some people are undoubtedly better at understanding barbarian gruntings than others.

  1. Taiwanese people (or Chinese speakers overseas) are not used to dealing with non-native speakers of their language. Contrast this with English speakers, who are often used to speaking with people who have different levels of English - first generation immigrants and visiting tourists, for example.

  2. Chinese has a much narrower pool of legitimate sounds than English. If you mispronounce something in Mandarin, it is much less likely to be intelligible than if you do the same in English. For example, if you say “mudder” rather than “mother”, it’ll probably be understood. If you pronounce the “eng” in péngyou (friend) to rhyme with the sound in the English word “length” (as beginning learners sometimes do), it makes it very difficult for a native speaker. If you get closer to the “ung” in the English “sung”, you’ve a better chance of being understood.

  3. Mandarin is much less forgiving of mistakes. It is also monosyllabic at the character level, which means Chinese speakers have a lot less to go off if you’re using single syllables at a time (i.e. you have to get them right or you simply won’t be understood). If you pronounce “pen” as bì instead of bǐ, a conversation partner is much more likely to understand you in context - saying “bì, bì, bì” again and again won’t help. Saying “wǒ zhèbiān yǒu liǎng zhī bì” (I have two pens here) while you’re holding two pens in your hand will most likely be understood, even though “pen” is pronouced wrong.

  4. Tones. This a the major one, I feel. If you say bāng instead of bàng, it’s very difficult for a native speaker to understand you, because they’re hearing a legitimate sound, and attempting to assimilate that, especially if there is no context to help them out.

To combat these problems, correct pronounciation is extremely important. Until you can reliably and unambiguously reproduce Mandarin sounds and tones, native speakers will struggle to understand you. In learning to speak it myself the single biggest leap I made was when the tones ‘clicked’ in my head and I could hear and say them properly. Other people’s comprehension of my ramblings shot up dramatically. Nowadays when someone fails to understand me it’s usually because of a lack of vocabulary on my part rather than any other cause. :s

So it’s about pronounciation, tones and context. Keep at it!

Hm - makes sense. I also agree that Americans are probably more used to speaking to people who are new to English. If you use the wrong grammar or pronunciation in English its usually not to hard to figure out, I guess thats a strong aspect of English.

‘Me Want Da Pan’ when a guy is filling out a form will clue you in he wants the ‘PEN’ whereas a similarly incoherent sentence in Chinese might be impossible to understand.

[quote=“Taffy”]I think many learners of Chinese are familiar with this phenomenon, which has a few different causes. But I’d also say that it depends to a large extent on the person in question - some people are undoubtedly better at understanding barbarian gruntings than others.

  1. Taiwanese people (or Chinese speakers overseas) are not used to dealing with non-native speakers of their language. Contrast this with English speakers, who are often used to speaking with people who have different levels of English - first generation immigrants and visiting tourists, for example.

  2. Chinese has a much narrower pool of legitimate sounds than English. If you mispronounce something in Mandarin, it is much less likely to be intelligible than if you do the same in English. For example, if you say “mudder” rather than “mother”, it’ll probably be understood. If you pronounce the “eng” in péngyou (friend) to rhyme with the sound in the English word “length” (as beginning learners sometimes do), it makes it very difficult for a native speaker. If you get closer to the “ung” in the English “sung”, you’ve a better chance of being understood.

  3. Mandarin is much less forgiving of mistakes. It is also monosyllabic at the character level, which means Chinese speakers have a lot less to go off if you’re using single syllables at a time (i.e. you have to get them right or you simply won’t be understood). If you pronounce “pen” as bì instead of bǐ, a conversation partner is much more likely to understand you in context - saying “bì, bì, bì” again and again won’t help. Saying “wǒ zhèbiān yǒu liǎng zhī bì” (I have two pens here) while you’re holding two pens in your hand will most likely be understood, even though “pen” is pronouced wrong.

  4. Tones. This a the major one, I feel. If you say bāng instead of bàng, it’s very difficult for a native speaker to understand you, because they’re hearing a legitimate sound, and attempting to assimilate that, especially if there is no context to help them out.

To combat these problems, correct pronounciation is extremely important. Until you can reliably and unambiguously reproduce Mandarin sounds and tones, native speakers will struggle to understand you. In learning to speak it myself the single biggest leap I made was when the tones ‘clicked’ in my head and I could hear and say them properly. Other people’s comprehension of my ramblings shot up dramatically. Nowadays when someone fails to understand me it’s usually because of a lack of vocabulary on my part rather than any other cause. :s

So it’s about pronounciation, tones and context. Keep at it![/quote]

agree with your points, well made…but the pengyou example is a red herring i think…according to my “research” the two pronounciations are mutually acceptable; i have a theory its a flaw in bopomofo that has lead to this but I may be wrong…

English speakers are used to listening to people from all over the world speak English with various degrees of competence, and so many of us are able to “make the effort” to understand what people are saying. This requires patience, imagination, and a familiarity with common errors made by non-native speakers. (In my experience, English speakers who live in areas with little contact with foreigners do not tend to have such skills.)

Chinese are far less used to this situation, so many have not developed the skills to make the effort to understand. But I know some locals who deal with Chinese-speaking foreigners all the time, and they do indeed have such skills.

I think you’re talking about the difference between ㄆㄥˊ and ㄆㄨㄥˊ - indeed people do use both - this correlates with the fact that southern Mandarin speakers pronounce “eng” ending sounds differently - the key seems to be whether a corresponding “ong” sound exists. For example “geng” is pronounced ‘correctly’ because a contrasting sound “gong” exists, but “feng” is pronounced “fong” in Taiwan (there is no ‘true’ “fong” syllable in Mandarin).

My point with the péngyou example was not the difference between the two sounds that speakers of Chinese use in practice, but the difference between those sounds and an English-influenced “eng” sound like in “length”, which comes about through not having a proper understanding of Mandarin phonetics. You can say “pong” (sounding like the computer game) or “pung” (rhyming with the English word sung) and be understood, but not if you use a close-mid “e” vowel in the middle, as some beginning learners do.

:slight_smile:

[quote=“Taffy”]I think many learners of Chinese are familiar with this phenomenon, which has a few different causes. But I’d also say that it depends to a large extent on the person in question - some people are undoubtedly better at understanding barbarian gruntings than others.

  1. Taiwanese people (or Chinese speakers overseas) are not used to dealing with non-native speakers of their language. Contrast this with English speakers, who are often used to speaking with people who have different levels of English - first generation immigrants and visiting tourists, for example.

  2. Chinese has a much narrower pool of legitimate sounds than English. If you mispronounce something in Mandarin, it is much less likely to be intelligible than if you do the same in English. For example, if you say “mudder” rather than “mother”, it’ll probably be understood. If you pronounce the “eng” in péngyou (friend) to rhyme with the sound in the English word “length” (as beginning learners sometimes do), it makes it very difficult for a native speaker. If you get closer to the “ung” in the English “sung”, you’ve a better chance of being understood.[/quote]I don’t agree that the differences are so great between Chinese and Chinese speakers, and English and English speakers. When I lived in Leeds I knew quite a few overseas students. Many of them reported problems in getting local people to understand them.

I think that in fact there is a fairly narrow band of tolerance for every language. Sure, getting tones wrong in tonal languages doesn’t help. But, as Chris said, native English speakers who don’t have much contact with “foreigner English” aren’t very good at understanding foreigners either.

I think you’re talking about the difference between ㄆㄥˊ and ㄆㄨㄥˊ - indeed people do use both - this correlates with the fact that southern Mandarin speakers pronounce “eng” ending sounds differently - the key seems to be whether a corresponding “ong” sound exists. For example “geng” is pronounced ‘correctly’ because a contrasting sound “gong” exists, but “feng” is pronounced “fong” in Taiwan (there is no ‘true’ “fong” syllable in Mandarin).

My point with the péngyou example was not the difference between the two sounds that speakers of Chinese use in practice, but the difference between those sounds and an English-influenced “eng” sound like in “length”, which comes about through not having a proper understanding of Mandarin phonetics. You can say “pong” (sounding like the computer game) or “pung” (rhyming with the English word sung) and be understood, but not if you use a close-mid “e” vowel in the middle, as some beginning learners do.

:slight_smile:[/quote]

:notworthy: on the $$ again…i take your point…

a more mundane example would be failure to pronounce clearly the difference between xiang and shang…something which beginners are likely to do because in English the difference is not important

[quote=“Chris”]English speakers are used to listening to people from all over the world speak English with various degrees of competence, and so many of us are able to “make the effort” to understand what people are saying. This requires patience, imagination, and a familiarity with common errors made by non-native speakers. (In my experience, English speakers who live in areas with little contact with foreigners do not tend to have such skills.)

Chinese are far less used to this situation, so many have not developed the skills to make the effort to understand. But I know some locals who deal with Chinese-speaking foreigners all the time, and they do indeed have such skills.[/quote]
I agree that it basically depends on how much exposure someone has had with non-native speakers of his or her language. My Mandarin was better understood in Hong Kong than it was in Sichuan - because in Hong Kong people have seen foreigners before and heard them speaking Chinese. In Sichuan most of the people I met had never seen a foreigner before. I could have been speaking perfect Mandarin and I don’t think they would have even realized I wasn’t speaking English.
Likewise, one roommate of mine was from a small town in Missouri. He had a hard time understanding his students - even those whose English was pretty good. I assumed it was lack of exposure to foreigner English at home.

I agree that it’s often the case that many Chinese speakers are not used to hearing their language mangled by a non-native speaker, but it is also just as often that a person’s brain cannot process “white/black face + Chinese words” – you can see it in their eyes, and no matter how good your tones are, they will not understand you because it just does not compute!

I myself have trouble understanding a white north European in my Chinese class who speaks excellent Chinese, tones and all, but have no trouble working out what the Koreans and Japanese, with their awful approximations of Chinese end sounds, are saying. I think I’m turning Taiwanese . . . :wink:

I am going to have to disagree with the main set of reasons. I can see how these reasons might influence matters, but I don’t think they are the cause. If they WERE the cause there would not be so many people who understand every single word I say and then a small amount who understand nothing. I think the answer is “ATTITUDE”.
I think a large amount of people here couldn’t he arsed to take the time to try.
I disagree that it has to do with exposure because I deal with this issue MUCH more in Taipei than I do when I go out of Taipei to the little towns.

You should do what I do. Refuse to repeat yourself. You will find that 9 times out of 10 when you refuse to play the game, refuse to repeat yourself, and just turn your back to the person they will 1) quit pretending to not understand you and 2) suddenly know exactly what you said that they didn’t understand about 10 seconds ago. I have actually never had this not work.

[quote=“SuchAFob”] I think the answer is “ATTITUDE”.
I think a large amount of people here couldn’t be arsed to take the time to try. [/quote]
:laughing: You know, I think you’re right – It’s not a brain thing, it’s an a**hole thing!

Excellent posts, Taffy.

Another example: Learners of Chinese seem to think that if they’re only a ‘little’ off with their pronunciation, Taiwanese should be able to guess what they meant. They don’t realize that the ‘little’ discrepancy between, say, tang1 and tang2 is as major to the Taiwanese ear as the difference between ‘soup’ and ‘sugar’ in English. You can’t ask the waiter for ‘soup’ and expect to get sugar, now, can you? :laughing:

[quote=“Dragonbones”]They don’t realize that the ‘little’ discrepancy between, say, tang1 and tang2 is as major to the Taiwanese ear as the difference between ‘soup’ and ‘sugar’ in English. You can’t ask the waiter for ‘soup’ and expect to get sugar, now, can you? :laughing:[/quote]If I was a waiter and someone asked me for some “cheekin sup” I would guess he meant “chicken soup”. Some accents of English vary even more, but I still understand them. Who’s fault is it anyway that Chinese has only has 400 sounds + tones ? (Even less now that x,s and sh are the same sound) many of those are hard to tell apart. And one sound having 70 characters, each one of those having numerous meanings.

If Chinese people can’t pronounce “th”, I still understand and I don’t make a big deal about it. But if you get a tone wrong it is a big deal. :loco:

I blame Bush.

I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss (or I misread) but if you aren’t those three all have pretty distinctive sounds. If you are having a laugh please disregard this post.

I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss (or I misread) but if you aren’t those three all have pretty distinctive sounds. If you are having a laugh please disregard this post.[/quote]Do they ? Taiwanese pronounce 4 and 10 different when they speak to you ? You must be lucky.

Ohhh I get it. You are talking just Taiwanese speaking Chinese. Correct, they all get converted into “s” pronunciation.

Yeah, it’s like going to a beef noodle shop and asking for “niu ro mien” in your best Chinese and get a blank stare. Repeat, no reaction. Not once, and not at the same shop either, so it’s not a question of the person being spiteful or anything.

So my question is this: What else could I possibly want in a beef noodle shop other than beef noodles when I say “niu ro mien”? :loco: Is there absolutely no connection to what I’m saying/asking for and the primary product sold by the shop. :loco: Do the three words not even sound vaguely familiar to the person standing in front of me? :s

Anyway, then on good days my Chinese is so good that they know what I want before I even completed my sentence. :slight_smile:

[quote=“Dragonbones”]Excellent posts, Taffy.

Another example: Learners of Chinese seem to think that if they’re only a ‘little’ off with their pronunciation, Taiwanese should be able to guess what they meant. They don’t realize that the ‘little’ discrepancy between, say, tang1 and tang2 is as major to the Taiwanese ear as the difference between ‘soup’ and ‘sugar’ in English. You can’t ask the waiter for ‘soup’ and expect to get sugar, now, can you? :laughing:[/quote]I know what you mean, but I disagree that “tang1” and “tang2” are perceived as completely different in the sense that soup and sugar are. Two reasons for this: the first, more important one is the popularity of puns and wordplays which often link words whose sound differs in tone only. The second reason is that despite the difficulties reported on threads such as this, it seems that those westerners whose Mandarin is “fluent” (in a narrow sense) but whose tones are rubbish, still manage to make themselves understood most of the time.

I’m the opposite, by the way. Not fluent at all but my tones are usually passable. And in fact I rarely get the reactions people are describing here. Occasionally people misunderstand particular words I say, yes. It’s very normal, I feel, as the basic phonemic set of the native is pretty fixed in the brain at a fairly early age. This means that speakers of foreign languages can sometimes find it difficult to hear where they’re going wrong. These small yet non-native-speaker-like differences in pronunciation can result in comprehension difficulties for native speakers to understand, unless they have experience listening to foreigners speak their language.

That’s what I reckon anyway, based on my experiences in Leeds and here, and a bit of reading into such stuff.