The benefits of knowing some pidgin Chinese

Hi bryan,

Thank you very much for your encouragement!! I’ll spend the weekend reading some of my English grammar books……. over several bottles of Budweiser. Have a nice weekend with your pretty baby!

changye,

You don't give yourself enough credit! Your earlier sentence including the phrase, 'I would have had to go over all of my Chinese textbooks again' is perfectly correct. It is just stating that had you found out it was incorrect, you would have had to (in the past, after finding “睡好了吗?” to be wrong) go over the textbooks again (meaning going over the text books after finding out about it being wrong but still in the past tense as it relates to the present (before writing this sentence). Hope this makes sense and that I didn't just confuse you more. 你英文写的这么好。 While I'm at it, I'd like to thank you for all you've given to the community. I learn a lot from your helpful comments.

I was talking to my friend Cecilia today, I don't know her Chinese name, and we were talking about her boss Kevin. He is born in the Year of the Snake and she was saying that he is a little dragon.. and so I automatically said 小龙 :) I don't know enough to have a conversation with her but it's fun to be able to kid around with her, throwing a few Chinese words here and there. The dragon comment is in reference to a running joke we have about herself because one day she was, let's say.. not in the best of moods, and I said to Kevin that he should watch out for the dragon. :) They are both very nice people and I enjoy my interactions with them, and knowing a bit of "pidgin" Chinese makes those bonds all the more closer..

Short answer: Your assumptions are wrong.

i'm not at all angered by what you did so I don't really need to cool down. I just feel it's important that you get the right message here and it shouldn't be encouragement, in my opinion. I don't know anything about the situation but I'm assuming that you 1) assumed the person spoke Chinese and 2) you publicly singled her out based on her ethnicity. I understand that having students sleep in class is not desireable. I also understand that you might want to wake students up so that they pay attention. It is your methods that I find problematic.

Never had the case, maybe students of Information Systems and Business Administrations don't knit that often...

I am pretty fine with most kinds of active and passive participation, I just don't like visible demonstrations of boredom or mental absence, especially when I put some effort into prearing or holding the lecture.

Attendance is voluntarily, if a student regards the class to be uninteresting she or he can stay at home, get some sleep, and work with the books.

Auntie Sue, I heard it said that the male species feels that you are not paying attention, when knitting. The same in relationships, when he wants to talk to you and you don't put down your knitting, he may feel that you consider it not important enough. I guess if one is not good or not used to multi-tasking, then you may give that message.

We had a law teacher once, we explained to him that we concentrate better when we knit at the same time, and he allowed us to bring our knitting into class as long as it would not distract others. I guess it's best to check with your lecturer how he feels about knitting in class

Reading this, I suppose I used to freak out some of my lecturers, unintentionally. I'd sit there, eyes closed, completely relaxed, looking like I was asleep I suppose, but listening and storing every concept and opinion. Then the lecturer would come out with something contradictory or confusing and I'd sit bolt upright and blurt out a question. I never considered it from their viewpoint before now, but I guess it must have looked like a lightning bolt zapping a corpse to life. BTW, we always got excellent answers!

How do you feel about students knitting in lectures? It really helps the student's concentration on the lecture and enhances recall (next time you knit, you replay it), but I have heard that it drives some lecturers bonkers. True? Why so?

Hi wildyaks,

Good point.

I think it might depend on the situation.

最近你睡得好吗？ Do you sleep well these days?

昨晚你睡得好吗？ Did you sleep well last night?

For the record,

昨晚我睡得香！

昨晚我睡得很香！

昨晚我睡得好香！

Last night I slept VERY well.

Yes, I would agree that 1) is what people ask you in the morning after a nights sleep, or just after waking up from sleep or a nap.

As for 2), could it be that this is a general question such as "Do you sleep well?" Something a doctor may ask?

Hi azerdocmom,

Thanks, your comment inspired me to go over this problem. My conclusion is as follows, and I would definitely appreciate other guy’s corrections and advice. I don’t know if there is any difference of nuance between (1) and (2).

1) 你睡好了吗？ Did you sleep well?

2) 你睡得好吗？ Did you sleep well?

3) 你睡完了吗？ Are you done with your nap?

4) 你睡了好吗？ Grammatically incorrect, perhaps.

There seems to be a bit of a cultural difference with sleeping in class... and just general attitudes towards what's correct behavior. Here in Taiwan, eating in class is considered disrespectful, but sleeping... ah, no problem! I walk by many classes where half the class have their heads down on the desk.

Meanwhile, they don't know what to make of me; I'm a softie because I don't really care if they're eating (as long as they don't make too much noise with the plastic bags), but then I'm a tyrant because I don't let them sleep.

(I'm with Henning--it drives me bonkers if anyone's asleep in my class. They're going to get some attention from me, and not in a particularly sweet way.)

dave,

cool down.

Both by (low) volume and tone of voice I guarenteed that it was not "singling out" but rather a private communication channel.

Besides, any other student taking a nap in my class would have gotten a remark, too. Because I find that kind of behaviour...a bit distracting.

henning, as I pondered over this phrase, 睡好了吗, I am wondering if I should retract what I posted earlier; I have been contemplating the difference between 睡好了吗 and 睡了好吗?

睡好了吗 - are you done with your nap? are you done sleeping? 睡好了 as s statement would mean "done sleeping." Adding 吗 would make it into a question.

睡了好吗- how was your nap? how was your sleep? 睡了 would mean "slept", and 好吗 would turn it into a question as to "how did one sleep."

Is this right or am I just getting myself all confused...

Your story might be humoruous and that may be an effective way of getting the class' attention but the act itself is questionable at best. Sorry, had to give you my opnion.

I hope you also plan to single out other students out based on their ethnicities and attempt to use their languages as well.

My wife told me a few Chengyu I should have used instead of that unsophisticated sentence.

Problem is, I forgot them all as soon as the phone call was over ;)

Thanks everyone for the encouragement + supplying my arsenal :)

@RJ: I know how to distinguish the contented dreamieness after a long SciFi-night from the effects of utterly boredom...

@calkins: No, actually not. My area is Information Systems. As I am working in an Institute of Business Administration it was considered self-evident that I should be able to handle a course on "Accounting Theory" as well - despite having hovered more over the technical side of IS for quite a few years.

It costed me some sweat and quite some time when I first prepared this couse. But I learned and brushed up lots of useful stuff in depth which comes in very handy now when discussing Business Intelligence.

Sometimes you just have to force yourself (or be forced) to do something seemingly totally different to get ahead. And what is more different than Chinese?

Hi henning,

Your thread is always educational.

Hi user30796,

Thanks to your perfect “past subjunctive sentence” in your comment, I’ve just noticed a grammatical error in my posting. Let me correct. “If “睡好了吗?” were not a standard Mandarin phrase, I would have (“had” was deleted) to go over all of my Chinese textbooks again. ” And as you said, “睡够了吗?” really sounds more sarcastic in such a situation. I believe that henning will certainly use the phrase in his next lecture. Thank you again!

Hi henning, you are so funny. If I may, 睡好了吗 is perfectly correct. It means basically, "how was your nap" or "how did you sleep?" You can use it in a serious tone to inquire if someone slept well or not, or in this instance, as a tongue-in-cheek quip. I'm sure she was quite taken aback and embarrassed by it simultaneously.

goulniky, 舒不舒服? (a sarcastic "are you comfy") sounds more accurate without the ma particle. That phrase would have made the point to the student as well, that she fell asleep in the lecture; but not as funny and precise as 睡好了吗

Henning,

睡好了吗 is perfect. If you had said something like 睡够了吗 (slept enough?) it would have been a bit sarcastic. I interpret what you said as "finished your sleep?", which in Chinese rings a friendly tone and could not have been too embarrassing for the student.

Hi Changye san, were you in a meeting? (just kidding..)

It's alot of fun to surprise people like that. Little things like this sometimes just make my day. ^_^

Henning,

have a heart. Maybe the poor girl was up late watching star trek.

oops sorry, no '吗' above. well, it doesn't sound so good after all

how about asking 舒不舒服吗?

睡好了吗 sounds correct to me, the question is does it have the intended meaning : to me it means something like '*did* you sleep well' except it's lacking context as to exactly when (昨晚你睡好了吗？) so it's really something you should have asked *after* she woke up.

seems to work anyway!

P.S. Sorry if I'm being nosy!

That's classic! So Henning, you're a professor of accounting? I know you work in the ivory tower ;) but I've always wondered what else you do with your incredible intelligence.

My problem with this language is: I am never 100% confident. Too often did I hear: "Nobody says so, it sounds a bit awkward...".

Actually the worst answer you will get is: "That sentence is totally correct. And that is exaclty why it sounds as if it comes from a robot. Only foreigners will say so"

So I sent out disclaimers even when I think it must be right. Guts feeling gets better, but well, it will probably never 到位.

;)

It must be correct. Lots of Chinese speaking Chinese have asked me this question before. Or so I recall...

I believe 睡好了吗 is correct.

That's really funny, I remember shocking a couple of guys at uni with my mandarin, and since then we've been really good friends. I wonder what the correct way to say 睡好了吗 would be...?

This reminds me of the time I was teaching some of the first graders that aren't native Danish speakers. One of them is Chinese, very bright and always goofing around, testing the patience of the poor substitute teacher. At one point he was pretending to cry because he didn't want to do his math exercises so I said this to him: 别哭了。 你不是一个宝宝。 For one second he was completely stunned, then he laughed covering his mouth with his hand and actually behaved well for the next five minutes. :-)

Hi henning,

If “睡好了吗?” were not a standard Mandarin phrase, I would have had to go over all of my Chinese textbooks again. I’m not sure if this “subjunctive” English sentence is grammatically correct, but anyway I strongly recommend you ask your better half about “睡好了吗?”. Uncle changye is a bit tipsy now, so see you guys again tomorrow morning! 我喝够了！

Hi. Yes, henning, I agree with trevelyan that you speak much more than pidgin Chinese. When I read that story, I cheered for you! heh heh...

I have heard in Japan it is acceptable to sleep through parts of meetings not relevant or interesting to yourself. Is this true? Changye? Sounds like a good idea to me.

ahh, but henning speaks much more than pidgin Chinese. And for all you know, your Chinese could have been better than hers....

this actually reminded me of the time I was in Singapore, so many Chinese students at the university were asleep (not necessarily during lectures, but it was as though they were constantly exhausted).

henning, that's brilliant

This semester when attending a class on Chinese economics (in English), there were quite a few Mandarin-speaking Chinese students getting a masters in finance who attended, despited this being geared for us Chinese studies majors. Yet they interacted very little with us westerners...and they seemed to have this attitude that we knew nothing of China.

One day, our teacher made a comment about how foreigners used to be viewed in China, and were called Foreign Devils. Yet our teacher, only bein able to speak Cantonese (from Hong Kong) wasn't sure how to say it, and the Chinese students were kind of confused what she was trying to say. I pipped up with "洋鬼子" to help them understand... you should have seen their eyes bulge when they realized I knew the words in Chinese....

The Chinese ones laughed, the rest probably thought I switched into some bizzarre state of mind and started talking in tongues. Or they did not even notice because the "Dynamic Balance Sheet Theory by Schmalenbach" sounded equally familiar*.

;)

* no, it was not my idea to teach that subject (or the course as a whole).

Did the other 79 gain some respect for you as well?