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sid_guardian2019-02-19 08:48 pm
mecurtin) wrote in sid_guardian2019-02-19 08:48 pm
Entry tags:
Language confusion
[to the tune of "Land of Confusion"]
I'm only up to Episode 9 so far, but I already have SO MANY QUESTIONS. And feelings!!
As you probably recall, in Episode 6 Zhao Yun Lan says, in the English subtitles:
(How does one extract the Chinese subtitle characters for running through Google translate etc? Is there a trick to it?)
Anyway, I was quite startled because what he says while the screen is saying "Just like that" sounds to my ear like je ne sais pas, French for "I don't know". (I am, or used to be, fluent in French.)
Is this a trick of my ears/brain? Is he actually speaking French, as an American might who jokes, "Affected? Moi?" Is there a more idiomatic English translation that "Just like that"?
So many questions! I'm actually really tempted to look for a way to learn ONLY spoken Chinese: I'm over 60, and I don't have the time or neurons to learn Chinese writing.
I've never listened to so much Chinese in a row before, and I'm struck by how different it sounds in Guardian than what I overhear (not infrequently) in central NJ. In particular, the actors' accents seem much less tonal and less nasal than what I hear around me.
In a bit of dialogue from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Michelle Yeoh sounds to my ear as though she's speaking the same dialect (or maybe topolect) as they do in Guardian, while Zhang Ziyi has a little bit of the tonal, nasal quality familiar to my ear. In some "Chinese on the Street" interviews, done in Beijing, there seem to me to be a range of speech styles, mostly much more tonal & nasal than in Guardian.
Is there a distinct "acting dialect" in Chinese, like the old Mid-Atlantic accent in English? Or is my ear just not attuned to what's actually going on?
I'm only up to Episode 9 so far, but I already have SO MANY QUESTIONS. And feelings!!
As you probably recall, in Episode 6 Zhao Yun Lan says, in the English subtitles:
I don't know!
Just like that
(How does one extract the Chinese subtitle characters for running through Google translate etc? Is there a trick to it?)
Anyway, I was quite startled because what he says while the screen is saying "Just like that" sounds to my ear like je ne sais pas, French for "I don't know". (I am, or used to be, fluent in French.)
Is this a trick of my ears/brain? Is he actually speaking French, as an American might who jokes, "Affected? Moi?" Is there a more idiomatic English translation that "Just like that"?
So many questions! I'm actually really tempted to look for a way to learn ONLY spoken Chinese: I'm over 60, and I don't have the time or neurons to learn Chinese writing.
I've never listened to so much Chinese in a row before, and I'm struck by how different it sounds in Guardian than what I overhear (not infrequently) in central NJ. In particular, the actors' accents seem much less tonal and less nasal than what I hear around me.
In a bit of dialogue from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Michelle Yeoh sounds to my ear as though she's speaking the same dialect (or maybe topolect) as they do in Guardian, while Zhang Ziyi has a little bit of the tonal, nasal quality familiar to my ear. In some "Chinese on the Street" interviews, done in Beijing, there seem to me to be a range of speech styles, mostly much more tonal & nasal than in Guardian.
Is there a distinct "acting dialect" in Chinese, like the old Mid-Atlantic accent in English? Or is my ear just not attuned to what's actually going on?
no subject
I think it's really hard to learn Chinese without learning the characters, because the characters are what distinguish sounds from each other. But give it a shot!
If it helps, I wrote a language primer that talks a little about dialects and accents. They speak Mandarin in Guardian but people have different accents. I think the nasal thing is mostly a personal way someone might speak and not really related to dialect. What you're hearing as nasal is probably just people's personal voices or how they manipulate them. The Chinese on the Street vid you linked, I didn't listen to it all, but everyone I listened to was speaking Mandarin.
https://asya-ana.dreamwidth.org/98581.html