I need to have a conversation with my girlfriend’s parents (not just any conversation, we want to get married this year and I need to ask for their blessing!!). I only recently started to learn Chinese (in the UK where I live with my gf). Here’s something I found online but my gf had a look and said it’s not sincere enough (and she won’t help - says I need to do this by myself )
I really want to tell them that I will love her and take very good care of her forever and appreciate the work they did raising such a lovely girl. I also want to promise that we will come to visit them as much as we can.
Thanks for any help with this , if someone has any other suggestions of things I could/should say then please let me know…
I need to have a conversation with my girlfriend’s parents (not just any conversation, we want to get married this year and I need to ask for their blessing!!). I only recently started to learn Chinese (in the UK where I live with my gf). Here’s something I found online but my gf had a look and said it’s not sincere enough (and she won’t help - says I need to do this by myself )
I really want to tell them that I will love her and take very good care of her forever and appreciate the work they did raising such a lovely girl. I also want to promise that we will come to visit them as much as we can.
Thanks for any help with this , if someone has any other suggestions of things I could/should say then please let me know…[/quote]
It seems strange to start out by addressing them as “father in law and mother in law” (as you’ve done in your sentence here) before they have given you their blessing. If they are Taiwanese speaking, you could open with “A(1) Bei(4), A(1) Mmh(4)” – “Uncle and Auntie”, often used to address the parents of friends – before continuing with what you want to say in Mandarin. It would be more endearing and seem less like “jumping the gun.” Once you have their blessing, they may just ask you to call them “Mom and Dad”. (I don’t think very many people address their in-laws with the formal terms you used – those are usually used as 3rd person references.)
Better yet, do they understand some English? It seems to me it would be more natural for you to lead into this by using English to explain that you cherish their daughter and ask for her hand, and then throw in this sentence or something like it as a token of effort and willingness to try to make some headway into their culture! In that case, I think the sentence you’ve found is okay, but suggest you replace “她” with your girlfriend’s name in Chinese, and “二老” with simply “你們” (the term 二老 may sound stilted in this day and age, especially coming from a non-native speaker).
I’ve never heard anyone use the expression “erlao”, but if you swap the characters, you get “penis”. You don’t want to make that mistake!
For what it’s worth, I think you’d be much better off asking for their blessing in own heavily accented, grammatically awkward beginner’s Chinese than you would be memorizing some phrase you found online. Sincerity comes from the heart. With that in mind, here are few words you might find helpful.
祝福 zhu4fu2 - blessing
嫁給 jia4gei3 - marry (used for a girl marrying a guy: 你的女朋友要嫁給你)
娶 qu3 - marry (used for a guy marrying a girl: 你要娶你的女朋友)
一輩子 yi2bei4zi - a lifetime (less formal than 一生一世)
Just wondering if you have met the parents before, or how much they know about you. You do know a lot (not all) Taiwanese will be very much against the idea of their daughter marrying a foreigner. The fact she is making you do this, makes me suspect she knows the reaction she will get if she were to broach the subject with her parents.
Get yourself a 媒人 pronounced “mei ren” to help. It’s a tradition. They do the talking and act as the go between. An uncle or aunt might help or a very good friend.
Thanks for the quick replies! I appreciate your help a lot.
Rotalsnart:
Thanks for helping. They normally speak Mandarin (and my gf doesn’t speak much Taiwanese at all) so I feel like it would be strange for me to speak Taiwanese to them (although her Mum might like it as most of her relatives speak Taiwanese). An equivalent in Mandarin (to address them without being too formal) would be better. They don’t speak English, except a few badly pronounced words the last time I met them. I also have a Scottish accent, making communication pretty difficult even with Taiwanese who do speak English! “二老” was probably written by someone from China, as I found it in Simplified Chinese.
haokaiyang:
Thanks for the advice, I especially agree that sincerity comes from the heart and memorising something that I don’t really understand is a bad idea. Thanks for the tip about “erlao”, I really don’t want to make a mistake like that! The words are really useful too (see my second attempt below).
Mick:
Yes I have met them before and they are well aware of our intention to get married already. I just want to follow local custom and ask them officially. But thanks for you advice.
E04teacherlin:
Thanks, haven’t heard about this before. I presume this only applies to those who can’t speak the same language? Unfortunately I’ve never lived in Taiwan or had much chance to make any friends on my short trips there.
Here’s my attempt at something more real (not just copied), help with grammar or any other advice apreciated. I’ve split it into a few parts (mostly to avoid confusing myself!).
叔叔，阿姨。
Shūshu, āyí.
Uncle, auntie. (is this the correct way to address them?)
我愛和珍惜會一輩子。
Wǒ ài hé zhēnxī [her name] huì yībèizi.
I will love and cherish [] for a lifetime.
我要娶她。
Wǒ yào qǔ tā.
I want to marry her.
請給你們的祝福。
Qǐng gěi nǐmen de zhùfú.
Please give your blessing.
Feel free to criticise if it’s poorly worded…Thanks!
[quote=“gmcgough600”]叔叔，阿姨。
Shūshu, āyí.
Uncle, auntie. (is this the correct way to address them?)[/quote]
I don’t know, actually. If it were me, I’d probably for X先生, X太太 (Mr. and Mrs. X), but Uncle and Aunt might work too.
[quote]我愛和珍惜[]會一輩子。
Wǒ ài hé zhēnxī [her name] huì yībèizi.
I will love and cherish [] for a lifetime.[/quote]
I’d go for 我愛[]，我會珍惜她一輩子。
[quote]我要娶她。
Wǒ yào qǔ tā.
I want to marry her.[/quote]
Looks good to me. If you want, you can add 想 before 要.
[quote]請給你們的祝福。
Qǐng gěi nǐmen de zhùfú.
Please give your blessing.[/quote]
I’d go for 我們希望有你們的祝福 wo3men xi1wang4 you3 ni3men de zhu4fu2 (We’d like/we wish for your blessing.)
I’ve never popped the question before, so hopefully some guys who’ve actually done this will chime in.
Presumably you’ll be proposing to your gf first, in private, before asking her parents for her hand. Why don’t you ask your gf for her advice about what to say to her parents? After all, she knows their personalities far better than you or any of us do.
FWIW, I’ve never heard of anyone formally asking future in-laws for their daughter’s hand in marriage in Taiwan. There is a custom that involves a monetary gift wherein the groom formally visits the bride’s home along with some male members of his family, but this is after it’s already been decided that the couple will marry, and not everyone does this.
This is a high context culture, meaning you don’t say things so directly here. I’m trying to imagine how this will actually go down as you’ve planned it, and it feels all sorts of awkward to me. I’m afraid you are highly likely to look foolish doing this, and you are highly likely to make the parents feel foolish as well.
I would go with something much more casual and less direct, and only after meeting them a few times so they are comfortable chatting with you. If you aren’t fluent in Mandarin and they don’t speak English, have someone translate for you, because even if you can get through a few memorized lines, you aren’t going to have a normal conversation, and that will be awkward for you and them.
Goddam, she let you off the hook?
Mine made me do it over the phone, from Uk to Taichung. My Chinese is average now, it was poor back then. Finding it hard to remember a more stilted or awkward phone-call. I was reading from a sheet of pinyin, but of course I couldn’t process the responses I got from her pa to each of my phrases.
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, if someone has any other suggestions of things I could/should say then please let me know…
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, if someone has any other suggestions of things I could/should say then please let me know…[/quote]