Word Confusion I

One of the most common mistakes a newbie to the Spanish language is the attempt to say ‘I’m embarrassed’ by way of a cognate and end up saying ‘Estoy embarrazado(a)’ which means, ‘I’m pregnant’. While Chinese doesn’t have that same type of complication, the same sound like wo (said whoa) has the potential for four different inflections, and each is a different meaning altogether. As if that weren’t enough, the same inflection can have several different meanings too, an issue usually resolved by have the written character present as well. If you ever watch Chinese TV or movies, you’ll notice the show is always subtitled with the Chinese characters, and it’s not for the foreigners’ sake. It is so the Chinese can be sure what meaning is implied by a sound has diverse characterizations and definitions.

One of the more obvious mistakes that can be made at the beginning of one’s study of Chinese is the use of qíng wèn (ching [upward inflection] when [downward inflection]) which means, ‘Might I ask…’. Westerner are used to putting upward inflections on all question words, and so it would be easy to say both of those syllables with an upward inflection (qíngwén), but be warned that if you do so, you are actually asking ‘might I kiss…’

None of my blunders have been too embarrassing… yet, but they have been the cause for some good laughs. I’m not entirely sure how clearly the humor will come through in translation. There is a good chance that these will be ‘you had to be there’ scripts, but I am willing to take that chance.

So two days ago we using a grammar pattern to talk about what things we found satisfactory and unsatisfactory when we came to China. I said that I thought that Beijing noodles were very satisfactory, but that the dorm room beds were really unsatisfactory. I didn’t know that tones for the word bed, but I knew that the phonetic sound was chuang (ch-wong[said like WAND]); this was my attempt to use it.

Me: “I am unsatisfied with the dorm chuang.”

Teacher: “The chuang? What is wrong with the chuang?”

Me: “They are very… hard.”

Teacher: “Hard? Do you mean they are hard to use?”

Me: “No, as in they are not soft.”

Teacher: “Not soft… hmmm, that’s very confusing. I’ll talk to you during the break.”

Me: “Okay.”

15 minutes later

Teacher: “Okay Michael, what was it you didn’t like?”

Me: “The chuang.”

Teacher: “And why don’t you like them?”

Me: “Because they are very hard.”

Teacher: “… Michael, all of the chuang in China are hard. Do you mean to say that in the US you don’t have hard chuang?”

Me: “Well, I imagine that there are, but for the most part we have very soft chuang.”

Teacher: “Really?! How is that possible?”

Me: “Well, they make them more like a pillow.”

Teacher: “A pillow?! Then what do you do when it gets cold, or if there is too much of a breeze?”

At this outcry she points towards the large panel of windows on the south side of the classroom, and it clicks. Since I didn’t know the word very well I tried to say it with a neutral tone, but I was accidentally saying it as chuāng (straight toned, no inflection) which means window. Once I realized this I was able to circumvent the definition of a bed so that she understood what I was trying to say. The word for bed is chuáng, with an upward inflection. I’ll leave it up to you to go through the conversation again and replace all of the chuang words with either window or bed, whichever you prefer. We both had a good laugh, and it was one of those experiences that helped engrain the word into lasting remembrance.