How do you ask “how are you?” in Chinese? Most textbooks or other study materials include the classic greeting 你好吗？ (“how are you?”) right in the first lesson. From a course creation perspective, this greeting is great. It builds on the universal greeting 你好 (“hello”) by just adding one word, plus it allows an opportunity to teach the very basic grammar pattern of using the question particle 吗 to create yes/no questions. It’s also very easy to answer, and the …
07
Apr
2011
2011
Olay PK Ad
I think this is going to be one of Shanghai’s shortest springs ever; we’re practically going straight from winter to summer. And advertisers know it; I saw this ad for skin whitening cream on the Metro the other day:
What struck me about this ad was not the amount of English, but rather the diversity of its usage in the ad:
Olay: a famous brand name, untranslated. (This is kind of a ballsy move in China, but some companies
…
04
Nov
2010
2010
Google Suggest Venn Diagrams for Chinese, Japanese, and English
I was recently introduced to the awesome Google Suggest Venn Diagram Generator by Micah. Some interesting suggested searches by Google were crossed with a Venn diagram by some creative soul, and then the process was automated on the web by request. The result is a unique way to visualize and compare the data indexed by Google.
Here’s an example of what the diagram generator produces:
So we can see from this graph that according to Google, lots of people …
17
Jul
2010
2010
The Pharmacy Count
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 terms of cleverness? Not too well, I’m …
04
Mar
2010
2010
Creative English with Chinese Characteristics
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:
- Democrazy
- Togayther
- Freedamn
- Shitizen
- Divoice
- Animale
- Amerryca
- Innernet
- Yakshit
- Departyment
- Suihide
- Don’train
- Corpspend
- Jokarlist
- Vegeteal
- Sexretary
- Canclensor
- Carass
- Harmany
Smilence is definitely the best …
04
Jan
2010
2010
Chinese for English Pronunciation (Shanghai World Expo Edition)
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 evening! (古的衣服宁)有什么需要帮助您的吗？
…
Can I help
23
May
2009
2009
Learn English with Obama
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 to …
24
Mar
2009
2009
English through Shanghainese
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 the …
14
Dec
2008
2008
Black English and Chinese
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 English.
…
04
Dec
2008
2008
English Essay Templates
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 …
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