Oh, Chinese...

Chinese is a fascinating language. Actually, languages in general are just... awesome. I was thinking about language the other day when I was at the gym powerlifting. A foreign guy was drinking beer and eating dinner with one of the trainers that speaks a little bit of English. Nobody else there could speak English except for me, and the foreign guy didn’t speak Chinese. We all were able to carry on a rather pleasant conversation through translation, but at one point the foreigner and I broke off and started our own conversation in English. While we were chatting and laughing about Crossfit and foam rollers and the Fulbright and Brazilian Jiujitsu, I thought about how for everyone else the sounds that were coming out of our mouths sounded like gibberish. It was just sounds to them, very foreign sounds even (the myth that everyone speaks English in China is indeed a myth). Then when I would translate something from English into Chinese for the other dudes, the sounds that were coming out of my mouth were just gibberish to the foreigner. 

“ABOOM!” as my friend Evan would say when he indicates his brain exploding out of the back of his head. My brain just kind of exploded then with the idea that we move our lips and our mouths in certain patterns that make specific noises that only a select number of people can understand, and to everyone else it just sounds like noise.

Chinese continues to fascinate me as I continue to learn and as I’m realizing more and more how NOT fluent I am and how much more I have to learn. I haven’t studied that many languages (Spanish, French, and Japanese) before, but I gather that Chinese has to be one of the coolest languages in the world. I mean, their word for uterus, 子宫, literally means, “child palace”. How can you beat that? I talk about this often with my friends and it’s the whole point behind my “Chinese word of day” section at the end of every blog post. Chinese is a cool language. I often think about the fact that Chinese will sometimes have one word for something that we can separate into many meanings in English. My friend Lesley told me that since language functions as a type of scaffolding for the brain, if a culture doesn’t have a word for something, the brain can’t conceptualize it. For example:

鸽子: 1. dove 2. pigeon (To the Chinese, it’s the exact same bird, they don’t understand and can’t conceptualize why we would have two different words for the same bird)

流产: 1. miscarriage 2. abortion (Yup, the Chinese don’t distinguish intentional and unintentional deaths in the uterus)

关: 1. close 2. turn off

开: 1. open 2. turn on 3. boil 4. start a fire 5. start

房子: 1. house 2. apartment

电梯: 1. elevator 2. escalator

上: 1. get on 2. get in 3. go up

下: 2. get off 2. get out 3. go down
让: 1. allow 2. invite 3. compel or force

It’s the same if you reverse the concept. English will have one word that can the Chinese will use different words to describe:

can: 1. 可以 (to be allowed to do sth) 2. 能 (to be able to do sth) 3. 会 (to acquire a skill needed to do something, like speak a language or play an instrument)

hot: 1. 辣 (spicy) 2. 烫 (something that you are eating or drinking is too hot) 3. 热 (the weather or your body temperature is too hot). 

close: 1. 关 (to close a door or shop) 2. 闭 (to close eyes, mouth or a window)

open: 2. 开 (see above) 2. 张 (to open eyes or mouth) 3. 坦率 (frank)

massage: 1. 推拿 2. 按摩 (had a heated debate about this with my masseuse this morning. Another customer in the room said he always thought the first definition was for Chinese traditional medicinal deep tissue massage and the second was for relaxation massage, which is how I always understood it too, but my masseuse said that the two words are completely synonymous.

like: 1. 喜欢 (to enjoy or take pleasure in something) 2. 好像 (similar to, as though, as if) 3. 比如 (for example)

visa: 1. the credit card company 2. 签证 (what you have to get to go to another country)

dumpling: 1. 水饺 2. 汤包 3. 锅贴 4. 蒸饺 5. 混沌 6. 小笼包 (I could continue but there are too many different words for what we Americans lump together as dumplings. Chinese people find this hilarious and confusing)

hard: 1. 难以 (difficult) 2. 硬 (the opposite of soft)

share: 1. 分享 (to share in enjoyment, usually food) 2. 共同 (to collaborate) 3. 共用 (to use together or have something in common)

Also, Chinese doesn’t distinguish the difference between male and female. There is no “he” and “she.” Even Chinese speakers who are very fluent in English will often mix this up. They’ll be telling a story about their Mom or their girlfriend and start saying, “he.” I’ll stop and say, “Wait, are we still talking about the same person?” In our English brains we get so confused! I’m used to it now, and as long as I’m paying attention, I don’t get confused anymore.

There are also certain words in Chinese that you use all the time that you will never see in English (not to even mention food), such as:

主食: staple food

围观: to stand in a circle and look on (without getting involved)

素质- inner quality, character, qualification, disposition, fiber of your being, basic essence, and constitution.

户口- household registration

体验- learn through personal experience

受凉- to get chilled and catch a cold

上火- internal heat

烦死了、难过死了、热死了: annoyed to death, sad to death, hot to death, ect ect... you can use it for almost anything when you “feel like you’re going to die.”

There are also words you’d never find in Chinese, such as

deodorant- can be translated as 除臭剂, which means “get rid of the bad smell dose.”

sarcasm- read: they never use sarcasm and don’t understand why we find sarcasm humorous, but if they do need to translate the word sarcasm, they say: 故意说反话, which literally means “intentionally saying the ironic words.” Sometimes sarcasm is also translated as 讽刺, which means to ridicule, which isn't what sarcasm is at all!

I love cognates because they make learning a new language so much easier. There is a misconception that Asian languages are harder to learn than the Latin-based languages because Asian languages don’t have cognates. Okay, so maybe they don’t have as many cognates, but they do use lots and lots of English words for concepts they didn’t originally have in their own language. I know Japanese does this a lot too. For example (not including proper nouns here):

咖啡- kafei for coffee

巧克力- qiaokeli for chocolate

逻辑- luoji for logic

拉丁- lading for latin

粉丝- fensi for fans

沙发- shafa for sofa

桑拿- sangna for sauna

巴士- bashi for bus

奥林匹克- aolinpike for Olympics

汉堡包- hanbaobao for hamburger

三明治- sanmingzhi for sandwich

NOTE: For a number of personal and practical reasons, I’ve moved out of my laofangzi, old house, in the old city of Nanjing. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, and I’m still conflicted about it and feeling guilty about leaving my new “family” behind. Anyway, it happened a little while ago, but I had some blog posts about living there in the works when I moved out that I haven’t published yet (I know I’ve been bad about posting these past two months). So I will be posting those in the future, even though my life there is in the past. Keep your eye out for new posts, I’ll be posting more as my life in China comes to a close on July 17th. SO SAD. SO UNBELIEVABLY SAD ABOUT THAT. 

NOTE TO SELF: Playing catch-up is not fun.

Chinese word of the day:

牛仔裤- niu2 zai3 ku4, literally “cowboy pants,” aka jeans