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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
Why? Because the actors were just so terrible? Or because the sound work was so terrible?
Are you a native speaker of Cantonese (or similar)?
Just watching ZYL I can tell that in an American version he'd have a New York accent.
*Spoken* Chinese is supposed to be no more than medium-hard for native English speakers. The writing system is where State Department officials, etc., really have to put in the time.
"At least it's not Japanese", they all say.
no subject
I have no clue. Since Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu are both original voices, they obvs were setup for sound work. Guardian has a weird combination of some characters original voice, some characters dubbed, and everyone had parts of their lines overdubbed because names of places were changed to pass censorship and it's a bit of a mess.
I am a native speaker of HK cantonese, where everyone's expected to also learn Mandarin (but pronounced in cantonese) and English at the same time, so I picked up pronunciation much later and i still get pinyin wrong a lot when i type. there's a higher expectation for reading ability than listening ability since China is huge, many regional dialects, absolutely everything is subtitled by law.
At least it's not Japanese: It's true. We have no verb forms or tenses. Monday to saturday is numbered 1-6 and all the months are numbered without special pronunciations. :3