I understand that in formal lessons the students are given examples of mainland Mandarin as well as the local version.
What is the answer. How do you suggest going about this?
Sorry, I meant “Is your blue ball RED?” red = hongse
I don’t think it’s the above though. “Is your blue ball red?” Would be something more like “Ni de lanse de qiu hongse de ma?”, I think(?).
Zuo4
I think you might be spending too much time with your “formal Chinese” book. You’re also making the mistake of trying to recognize distinctions between Mandarin spoken in Taiwan and Mandarin spoken on the mainland when there is no distinction to make. The main differences between Taiwanese and mainland Mandarin are in accent and content words. You are comparing formal Chinese with non-formal Chinese and trying to equate formal with the mainland and informal with Taiwan. That just isn’t how it works.[/quote]
zuo
I made a mistake.
Is that all that is wrong!
Sounds pretty good to me.
Oh yeah! 
“Zuo” not “Zou”
How do you say: “Are your balls blue or red?”?
or
“My balls are regular color? What color are your tits?”
Any chance of sticking with useful stuff like please sit on my face?
Where are you going to be asking if somebodies balls are different colors.
[quote=“Ironman”]
I understand that in formal lessons the students are given examples of mainland Mandarin as well as the local version.
What is the answer. How do you suggest going about this?[/quote]
Going about what? Learning colloquial or natural spoken language? The only way you’re going to learn it is by exposing yourself to it. More and more mainland books include live, unscripted listening task/langauge input materials. By unscripted, that means that when it was recorded, there was no script for the actors to read. I make a lot of listening materials like this in my job. We go into the studio with bullet points rather than scripts. The reason is that it is extremely difficult to write spoken language naturally before it is spoken. It will always end up sounding at least a bit like written language. The second problem is that even when actors have a fairly natural sounding script to read from, they still tend to produce a langauge sample that has a contrived or read feel to it. We actually use non-professional actors to do the language samples that we use for listening and language input. If we write the task cards well (with just enough information for them to understand what they’re supposed to accomplish in the conversation but little enough language so that they’ll have to produce their own), then we can get a very natural langauge sample. When we record, we want all the natural pauses, grunts, contractions, stress, intonation and interjections that appear in natural spoken discourse but rarely appear in written language. It’s nearly impossible to get all of those things if we work from a script.
Most of the listening materials in Taiwan are done from a script. They usually aren’t even read at a natural speed, and the language is often decontextualized. This makes is unnecessarily difficult for the student to discern register. If you really want to pick up natural sounding Mandarin, you need to pay less attention to the stuff that’s in the average book in Taiwan and just ask people. Aside from accent or a few content word differences, 9 times out of 10 Taiwanese people will tell you something that is just as often said on the mainland. And besides, I’d prefer to speak with a few Taiwanisms in my Mandarin than to sound like a book. You could also try to get some of the better materials from the mainland. Whether you use taped langauge samples as input or go to a Taiwanese friend with questions after your Chinese class, you will start to develop awareness for what sounds overly formal and what sounds like natural speech. Developing control of register takes time for any language learner. Unfortunately, most Chinese language learning materials don’t help that process along very well.
I have a local with me most of the time. I have books etc. I’m still keen on a sentence a day. Those of us interested can practise that sentence with locals.
I’ve been here more than 1,000 days now and have not quite stuck with a word a day and lately dropped to nothing. I’m on Forumosa so I think it makes some sense to prompt the language learning while here.
So, from what you are saying anyone who wants to stick a sentence up should forget the books and use a local sentence.
Could save a lot of confusion. Opinions?
Back to today and more simple. Note as Bob has said the g appears to be near silent in Taiwan.
Invite/ sit.
Please sit. (Please have a seat)
[quote=“Ironman”] I’m on Forumosa so I think it makes some sense to prompt the language learning while here.
So, from what you are saying anyone who wants to stick a sentence up should forget the books and use a local sentence.
[/quote]
I hope I haven’t sounded all stinky and opposed to people posting samples of language here to find out what sounds natural. I actually think it’s a good idea. Perhaps it would be best if when posting or correcting, people clarify their level of certainty and the context in which something might be said.
[quote=“Ironman”]
I have a local with me most of the time. I have books etc. I’m still keen on a sentence a day. Those of us interested can practise that sentence with locals. [/quote]
I will be spending next 5 weeks with ‘locals’ who look like this:
and this:
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I don’t think my biggest problem is the difference between mainland, taiwan, colloquial or formal Mandarinz.
:s
[quote=“tash”]I don’t think my biggest problem is the difference between mainland, taiwan, colloquial or formal Mandarinz.
:s[/quote]
They are good looking locals.
Your not taking on the z job are you. Mandarinz
Jiveturkey. Imo all discussion is good. Hopefully we can get something going that will make sense. Could take a bit of smoothing out.
Qing wen xiaojie, ninde mei mei shenme yan2se4?
Qing wen xiaojie, ninde mei mei shenme yan2se4?[/quote]
Isn’t “mei4 mei4” older or younger sister? (mei4 mei4 Maybe it’s “nai1 nai2”
“What color are you sisters?” Maybe.
I remember girl students saying, “(something) (something) zao3shang4. Nai1 nai1 how3 wan1.” After I would say phone numbers with “99” (nine nine) and they would laugh and say the above. “Nine nine” sounds like “nai1 nai1” which I’m guessing comes from mile (niunai).
Maybe: “Ni3 nai2 nai2 san2me yan1se.” Can’t do all the tones. Maybe I’m close or WAY off.
Back to the question at hand, yes, the “Mainland” version is just not used and would sound strange. Qing3 zuo4 is adequate and preferred, unless you have some need to add something akin to “oh, anywhere is fine”.
So, who is going to do tomorrow? Ming2tian
I agree with just sticking to local Taiwan Mandarin. There is enough Mainland stuff in the books.
By the way. I get told to call the well endowed roadside girls.
Da2nai3ma
Big/Milk?Chest?/mother
I don’t think it’s chest because chest would be xiong.
Qing wen xiaojie, ninde mei mei shenme yan2se4?[/quote]
Isn’t “mei4 mei4” older or younger sister? (mei4 mei4 Maybe it’s “nai1 nai2”
“What color are you sisters?” Maybe.
I remember girl students saying, “(something) (something) zao3shang4. Nai1 nai1 how3 wan1.” After I would say phone numbers with “99” (nine nine) and they would laugh and say the above. “Nine nine” sounds like “nai1 nai1” which I’m guessing comes from mile (niunai).
Maybe: “Ni3 nai2 nai2 san2me yan1se.” Can’t do all the tones. Maybe I’m close or WAY off.[/quote]
Er… I mean from “cow” (nai) not “mile”. Why did I type “mile”? Weird. Mile and cow. Not the same thing. Hmmm.
There’s nothing wrong with saying “sui2bian4 zuo4” in Taiwan…but the meaning is “Just take any seat”, not “Please sit down.” In fact, a native Mandarin-speaking interpreter I was working with last week used this very phrase with the delegation we were traveling with, so I’m sure.
But JiveTurkey is right. You’re comparing apples, oranges and the occasional persimmon here.
qing zuo 請坐
qing gewei ruzuo 請各位入座
zuozuozuo! 坐坐坐
can all mean “sit down” in Taiwan, but the levels of formality are quite different (the first being kind of normal, the second being conference level, the third being your grandfather saying “Take a load off, bub!”)
I’d really recommend sticking to one version of one idea until you have the tools to not starve or similar, then branch out. Otherwise it could get quite confusing.
[quote=“ironlady”]But JiveTurkey is right. You’re comparing apples, oranges and the occasional persimmon here.
[/quote]
Yes, JiveTurkey has been very helpful.
So, qing3 zuo4 would be correct. Normal use.
I’ll keep doing one of these a day for a while, using my reluctant language assistant as source. One normal Taiwan Mandarin sentence, then review after a period of time and see if it’s worthwhile going on with as a daily sentence that other posters can continue with.
This is excellent advice, with which I couldn’t more strongly concur. Pick one common, generally applicable expression and just start using it. You’ll pick up variations naturally later on.
Something I find quite fascinating is to see a written transcript of natural conversation. Once I saw an example like this taken from an honest to god, real conversation between two women in which one described going on vacation in Italy, falling in love, deciding to quit her job, MOVING to Italy and in the end realizing that the guy actually wasn’t quite her thing. Their conversation was filled with clarifications, self corrections, redundancies and simplified grammar; and was told with a sort of a looping narrative structure. Later they asked her to write out the whole story. The difference between the two versions of the same story was astounding. Astounding enough certainly to ram home the importance of studying naturally occuring conversation, at least if that is what you hope to understand and participate in. (Hard to imagine that many second language learners would have any other goal.)
If we try here to stick to casual language the analysis that happens afterwards (knowing this crowd!) is more likely to help all of us to negotiate our way through the real world of Mandarin speakers. It might also be preferrable to try and contextualize this little exercise by prodcing some sort of connected conversation. In that spirit might I suggest “Xie4xie4” as an inspired and witty retort to “Qing3 zuo4”.