While at the pharmacy the other day with my friend Chris, we came upon what seemed like a typical example of Engrish:
Funny, we thought… “the count” instead of “the counter.”
Only as we were leaving did we notice the guy behind the counter:
The Sesame Street character “the Count” is known for his rather clever name. Even a kid can get the pun. How does his Chinese name fare in…
Just in case you missed these English language Chinese coinages, here’s a sample:
Smilence 笑而不语
vi. When you are expecting some answers from your Chinese audience, you may just get a mysterious smile and their silence only.
动词 当你期望从中国听众那里获得一些回答的时候，你只得到了神秘的微笑和他们的沉默。
The rest of the list is here, but here’s a taste of what you’ll find:
Smilence…
This certainly isn’t the first time that Chinese characters have been used as a guide for pronunciation of English words, but it’s the most recent example I’ve seen, related to Shanghai’s World Expo. Here’s the “世博双语指南” (World Expo Bilingual Guide):
And here’s a text transcription of the content:
欢迎光临
welcome to our store! (维尔抗姆突奥窝思道)早上好！下午好！晚上好！
Good morning! (古的猫宁)
Good afternoon! (古的阿夫特怒)
Good
…
At the book store last night this book caught my eye:
The book [link on DangDang] claims to teach English using nine of Obama’s famous speeches, teaching you how to speak English like Obama. It even comes with an MP3 CD of audio content. Interesting!
Here’s another one [link on DangDang] that simply takes Obama’s speeches and translates them on the opposing page:
Without even trying, Obama has already begun to do his part…
My coworkers Jason and Daini at EnglishPod have released a series of English lessons. But they’re taught not in English, not even in Mandarin, but in Shanghainese! They call it 上海话教英语.
If you’re interested in Shanghainese, this is better material than a radio show, because you’ll understand the English, which means you’ll be able to better follow the discussion of it in Shanghainese than you would a random topic.
Also, you might recognize the voice of one of…
I was helping a Chinese friend with her English, and was very interested to read the following dialogue in her book. (I have preserved the grammar and punctuation of the original, but I didn’t feel like writing “[sic]” everywhere.)
The dialogue:
A: Your English is not like American English.
B: Oh, I see. What I speak is true American English, but it is not standard American English.
A: What kind of English is it?
B: It is Black
…
You’ve probably heard that tests are a big deal in China, and thus test prep is big business. This applies even to such “un-gameable” forms of tests as free response essay questions. But how do you game the free response portion of an English test?
Well, you memorize a number of essay templates, then just fit your essay answer into one of the templates. All you have to do is plug in a few relevant words and phrases, and with…
Some selected lyrics from Denison Witmer‘s song “Are you a Dreamer?“:
Dream, are you a dreamer?
Are you a dreamer?
Do you dream?
Sleep, are you a sleeper?
Are you a sleeper?
Do you sleep?
[...]
Love, are you my lover?
Are you my lover?
Do you love me?
Save, are you a savior?
Are you a savior?
Will you save?
As a linguist with experience teaching English, my reaction was, this song could be good…
No, not THAT kind of contractions…
One thing I’ve noticed about students of English in China is a tendency to ignore contractions. Chinese college students tend to be weak on spoken skills in general, and one of the symptoms is this failure to use contractions. We native speakers like to use contractions in informal speech, and as a student of English, failing to follow suit makes you stick out. When I taught English in Hangzhou, I used…
John has lived in China for
10
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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