What's going to sound unnatural coming from a Laowai ?

bababardwan

February 25, 2011, 11:21 PM posted in General Discussion

The idea for this post came from a discussion with pretzellogic here:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/second-hand-bicycle#comment-206583

eg can we say 哥们儿 without sounding weird, getting laughed at? What would be the reception?

..it got me to thinking about what's going to sound unnatural and strange to Chinese ears coming from a laowai?

Thought it would be interesting to create a list if possible of such words/ phrases, as well as discuss where you may or may not get away with it, why, etc.

zhenlijiang

February 26, 2011, 05:02 AM

Hi Baba, I don't know about Chinese ears. But there are enough people with MPS. They'll try to make you feel very self-conscious I'm sure ...

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/marco-polo-in-china

I see your list is coming right along. I have to say, I find it a little entertaining that an Australian is worried about things sounding "strange". hehe. Sorry. To your point, it would be nice in QW for example if they warned us about expressions that are either very rare, or somewhat dated. Still worth learning, but there should be that warning on the mirror that says: objects may appear more relevant than they are.

bababardwan

haha, very good mate, but I thought you knew me better than that. I was just curious/thought it would be interesting, never worried. Heck, it may even make me more inclined to use it if I thought there was a laugh in it. I take what I can get :)

RJ

No worries. Just pulling your whiskers mate.

bababardwan

喵dude

bababardwan

hey, all joking aside, this reminds me of something I meant to say. Namely, Americans may find this hard to believe but dude actually comes to me naturally enough in the right circumstances [though I guess I could be atypical...I've never been too concerned with convention...I think anything is fair game ]....I have said it on occasion, whereas I note mate does not seem to come so naturally to Americans. I think the difference comes from the fact that from childhood mostly via film and tv Aussies are exposed to a lot of American culture, whereas I don't think the converse is true. Some would not even be aware that certain things are typically American and not universal.

RJ

hehe, I never say dude. At least I try not to. And I refuse to discuss my mating habits.

guolan

February 27, 2011, 12:20 AM

我丈夫（美国人），如果朋友们一致夸奖他，他有点儿不舒服,他会交叉手指地说,"哪里哪里". 每次,朋友们笑起来,停住夸奖. 我猜,如果是一个中国人这样转移夸奖，结果可能不一样好笑。

RJ

我明白“哪里哪里” 可是为什么他会交叉手？

bababardwan

我猜这个“手指”手势表示“x"。。“不是”的意思，对不对?

guolan

RJ, 我不知道怎么表示这个动作，我用“交叉手指”可能用错了！我想表示的是中国人说“恭喜，恭喜”的时候用的那个动作，你知道我的意思吗？我也找不到一个用英文的方法来表示这个动作。

有没有同学知道怎么用中文或者英文来表示这个动作？

RJ

不错，不错，现在我明白。

stanrachev

I used to reply 哪里哪里 every time someone praises my Chinese unnecessarily, now I've moved on to 不敢当。I wonder if that one would appear even more strange...

guolan

bababardwan，我刚刚问一个中国朋友；他说这个动作叫“作揖”。这就是学习外语的特点；想说什么，但是不知道正确的单词，有时候，越说越不清楚！谢谢你们的忍受！

RJ

哈哈，现在我真正地了解. baba 显然地我们错误显然地我们错误.

malilaoshi - 做了你的朋友嘲笑这个姿态或词: "哪里，哪里“？可能两个?

我不说" nali" 再。朋友告诉了我这是古板的。这确实吗? 你是否同意？

bababardwan

mali老师，

我对这个“作揖”的动作很熟悉【其实最近在这里： http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/11264#comment-204684 讨论】，可是到现在不知道是叫做“作揖”。。谢谢告诉我

在那个上面提到的留言，我们讨论“拱手”，所以现在我要知道“作揖”和“拱手”有什么区别。还有在那个留言我说在春节而在武术的时候动作一点儿不一样。现在我猜可能“拱手”是有些用在武术，和作揖在春节，可是我真的不知道。。还有我刚刚搜索谷歌发现这个：

http://i3.sinaimg.cn/ent/m/p/2007-12-29/U2190P28T3D1856180F326DT20071229123140.JPG

“拱手作揖”。。哈哈。。可能没有区别。。。谁可以告诉我们？

反正，原来你说“交叉手指”【不是左掌上右拳】。。。所以我没觉得你描写这个“作揖”的动作。。。不好意思我误会了你的描写

bababardwan

“谢谢你们的忍受”

哪里。。我很喜欢跟你讨论这个话题，还有你教我一个生词】这个“作揖”。。多谢。

“越说越不清楚”。。哈哈，我就是这样。。可是没关系。。都很玩儿！

guolan

RJ,我的朋友也说过，她认为这个“哪里”是古板的。我好像没有听过我中国朋友们用这个单词；我只因为课本里有所以认识它。我自己不会用这个单词；我丈夫用这个单词是为了故意让朋友们笑。因为有时候，他真的不知道怎么谦逊地反应朋友的夸奖。让他们都笑起来好像是一个很好的办法；以后，朋友们不会一样那么正式，他们都也轻松一点儿。可能大笑可以算是一个国际的语言！

guolan

我也很好奇！可能“拱手”具体一点儿，“作揖“大体一点儿？

我说的那个单词”交叉手指“是我在谷歌乱搜索的；混乱的后果都是我的错！：）

RJ 和 bababardwan, 我刚刚进入中文播客，很高兴认识你们，和你们一起学习这门很有意思的、很奇妙的语言和文化！

bababardwan

thanks for your kind words. Very happy you've joined us as well. Sorry I can't type hanzi currently.

Actually looking at those two words again, I'd like to revise my guess. It seems to me that as indicated by shou, gongshou seems to referring to the action of the hands themselves whereas zuoyi refers to the whole action including the bow [not just the hand action]. I'd love to hear some clarification on this. Anyone know?