Insights into Chinese Language

I've recently found a forum about the Chinese language and by far the most interesting topic was the one regarding how foreigners managed to use Chinese in China.

As you already know, and if you don't you should know, Chinese is a tonal language, which means that they talk on 4 different tones. So... the same syllable has between 3 and 12 different meanings. For example, ma could mean mom, horse, ant, to scold someone and some final particles, depending on how you say it. Thus, the pronounciation is very important.

One of the stories on that forum was that a guy went to the cafeteria and asked for 女肉 nu rou (woman meat) instead of 牛肉 niu rou (beef). Apparently the cafeteria guy didn't understand what he had asked for and acted quite weird. The poor guy went home confused and looked it up, to his amusement.

Another one was about a guy who started dating a Chinese girl and while they were at home, he wanted to tell her to sit down 坐 zuo but instead he told her to 走 zou (to leave). He couldn't understand why she instantly wanted to leave :)).

There were a lot more stories, I had a good laugh. However, it sort of freaked me out about the whole studying in China prospect. I mean there was one guy who mistook a word for a sexual one in front of the whole university while he was giving a speech; of course everyone laughed really hard and he had no idea what had just happened. It's not hard to make mistakes like that, considering that 性 xing means sex and 行 xing means OK :P.

Although I've been studying Chinese for just 5 months, I have a funny story too. At one Chinese course, the conversation between me and Miss Liu was something like:

Liu 老师：你的发音很好。
Liu Laoshi: Ni de fayin hen hao.
Miss Liu: Your pronounciation is very good.

我：我不知道法语。
Wo: Wo bu zhidao fayu.
Me: But I don't speak French.

Of course, this happened when I was a novice :P. I don't mistake fayin for fayu anymore but I do have problems at times with 法语 fayu (French) and 语法 yufa (grammar). As you can see, same syllables, same pronounciation, same characters, just the order is inversed.

I think I'll always be amazed of how Chinese works :P. It's just too different from the other languages not to be into it.

Btw, this is how one of my notes looks like:



PS: Last night's party was fun :P.

再见！