Chinese Culture

[Xue Sheng]

MOD NOTE
Posts split from Stick Fighting thread to continue discussion.
Pamela Piszczek
MT Super Moderator
=========================================================================================================

MaartenSFS

off post I know... but

I just realized something

You’re in Chongqing.... How’s the food?

I have once and only once been at a restaurant where the chef was trained and worked in Sichuan before coming to the US and even stuff labeled as not spicy was too spicy for me. I did not go to any of the Sichuan Restaurant in Beijing based on that experience, but then a lot of food in Beijing is a bit spicy as well, but nothing like Sichuan.

Also what dialect do they speak in Chongqing?

 

[MaartenSFS]

The food here is inedible. Just as you said, if they say it isn't spicy... it's ****ing spicy. I've learned that you must tell them: "Under absolutely no bloody circumstance put any amount of pepper in my dish. This includes any substance with the second or third character being jiao (Lajiao = hot peppers, but there are different types) or other spicy things that I am unaware about. Usually, after I say this, it becomes more edible.

They speak Chongqinghua, a variant of Sichuanhua, which is one of the uglier forms of Putonghua (Mandarin). But it isn't as ugly as Erhua (Where they say "er this er that er er er" every second.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I am use to hearing Beijinghua which is Mandarin with a lot of "er" sounds at the end where other Mandarin speakers do not use them.

How many tones in Chongqinghua? As you likely already know there are only 4 in Beijing Mandarin but someone once told me that Taiwan Mandarin has 6.

And is that what you find yourself speaking more of or are they at least Beijing Mandarin friendly?

 

[MaartenSFS]

I speak Putonghua, with a slight Guilinhua accent (Because it sounds less vulgar). Infact, the standard form of Putonghua is not Beijinghua.

I'm not sure how many tones Chongqinghua has, but it doesn't appear to be any more or less. About Fujianhua (Taiwanese), that is true. Guangdonghua (Cantonese) has six as well, I believe. My wife's language (Zhuang), which is not a dialect of any form of Chinese, has even more and is a mouthful to speak (Moreso than even my own language (Nederlands - Dutch).

 

[Xue Sheng]

I speak Putonghua, with a slight Guilinhua accent (Because it sounds less vulgar). Infact, the standard form of Putonghua is not Beijinghua.

Yup, I know that, it is just more what I hear and what little I speak sounds like.

I'm not sure how many tones Chongqinghua has, but it doesn't appear to be any more or less. About Fujianhua (Taiwanese), that is true. Guangdonghua (Cantonese) has six as well, I believe. My wife's language (Zhuang), which is not a dialect of any form of Chinese, has even more and is a mouthful to speak (Moreso than even my own language (Nederlands - Dutch).

Ahh but Cantonese is for all intensive purposes an entirely different language. And you are required to know more characters to be considered literate or read a Cantonese newspaper for that matter. I have a friend from Guangzhou who is a native Cantonese speaker that had to learn Mandarin to go to school so he could train to be an English teacher. Which by the way was an English program that they had bought from Russia that came form England. But I am getting further and further off of your post.

Sorry about that.

One last off post thing

My wife's dialect is Beijinghua that is why I hear it so much.

 

[MaartenSFS]

Ahh but Cantonese is for all intensive purposes an entirely different language. And you are required to know more characters to be considered literate or read a Cantonese newspaper for that matter.quote]

There are many languages in China that are not based on Putonghua. Fujianhua and Shanghaihua, for example, are quite different. And then there are the minority languages (My wife is Zhuang and is a native Zhuang speaker, though her Chinese is better than most Chinese). Less than 70% of Chinese can speak good Chinese (So very few can speak it well). Many dialects are mutually unintelligible. Sometimes it's frustrating when my Chinese is better than... Chinese people. And my Chinese is far from perfect, though for everyday conversations not relating to aerospace engineering I have no problems. =P

 

[Xue Sheng]

Ahh but Cantonese is for all intensive purposes an entirely different language. And you are required to know more characters to be considered literate or read a Cantonese newspaper for that matter.quote]

There are many languages in China that are not based on Putonghua. Fujianhua and Shanghaihua, for example, are quite different. And then there are the minority languages (My wife is Zhuang and is a native Zhuang speaker, though her Chinese is better than most Chinese). Less than 70% of Chinese can speak good Chinese (So very few can speak it well). Many dialects are mutually unintelligible. Sometimes it's frustrating when my Chinese is better than... Chinese people. And my Chinese is far from perfect, though for everyday conversations not relating to aerospace engineering I have no problems. =P

Like my Brother-in-law with English. If you are talking Architecture his English is great but get outside of that it tends to not be so good and Beijinghua covers all other conversations.

Yes I am aware of the multiple Chinese languages. It was put to me by one of my professor’s years ago that Chinese is not so much a language as a family of languages much like Germanic Languages and Romance Languages.

My Mandarin is pretty much capable of finding me a bathroom and food at the moment but that is about as far as I can go right now. Oh and I can count to 100, now there is something useful .

 

[MaartenSFS]

We all start somewhere, right?