Foreigners Learning Chinese.

Foreigners Learning Chinese.
Apr 4, 2007 03:52
MAY001 Points: Join Date: Sep 28, 2005 Status: offline	How about your Chinese? See this small Chinese paragraph. Can you understand it? 约翰很珍惜与中国人的对话机会，笑话便层出不穷，比如他吿诉我：“我的媳妇 (西服)在皮包里。”“今天早上担心马路太忙，我七点就‘出家了 ’。”他的中国好友回国了，于是约翰经常念叨的是：“一个火人(好人)，飞去了(回去了)。”每次走到楼梯口，约翰都会略微躬着身，一派典型的英国绅士风度，口中念念有词：“请小心裸体(楼梯)，下流、下流，一起下流(下楼)吧。

Apr 4, 2007 03:52

MAY001
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Join Date: Sep 28, 2005
Status: offline

How about your Chinese? See this small Chinese paragraph. Can you understand it?

约翰很珍惜与中国人的对话机会，笑话便层出不穷，比如他吿诉我：“我的媳妇 (西服)在皮包里。”“今天早上担心马路太忙，我七点就‘出家了 ’。”他的中国好友回国了，于是约翰经常念叨的是：“一个火人(好人)，飞去了(回去了)。”每次走到楼梯口，约翰都会略微躬着身，一派典型的英国绅士风度，口中念念有词：“请小心裸体(楼梯)，下流、下流，一起下流(下楼)吧。

Apr 4, 2007 07:24	#1
TRAVELLERMIKE Points: Join Date: Mar 15, 2007 Status: Offline	So Difficult! You have jumped to expert class I think :-) Even with use of http://babelfish.altavista.com to give Chinese Character to English web translation, and Chinese Characters to Pinyin transcription ( http://www.pin1yin1.com ), I still struggle to fathom your true meaning :-( I hope John's jokes work better in Chinese.

Apr 4, 2007 09:34

SANYACHINA
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Join Date: Mar 26, 2007
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Hehe, May, dear, I am pretty sure that even some han-chinese will not understand it each character and what about the minorities? Do you know, some uigurian /维吾尔族的/ friends told me that they are unable to read a single Chinese character (but, of course, they can read and write Arabian/Uigurian letters).
So, the foreign friend, please, don't be upset. If you can't understand it - it is just okay :)

Apr 4, 2007 23:57	#3
CHRISWAUGHBJ Points: Join Date: Feb 26, 2007 Status: Offline	May, some of those puns work better if I think back to my time in Hunan.

Apr 5, 2007 02:50	#4
MAY001 Points: Join Date: Sep 28, 2005 Status: Offline	Yes, Chris. These kind of puns are hard to translated into English.

Apr 5, 2007 09:28	#5
LIONPOWER Points: Join Date: Dec 11, 2006 Status: Offline	Yes we able to translate it but meaning (theme) may differ from the original

Apr 5, 2007 21:37

CHRISWAUGHBJ
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Join Date: Feb 26, 2007
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Let me clarify: I didn't bother translating any of that. Humour is about as difficult as poetry to translate, and many jokes simply do not work in anything other than their original language. When reading this: "一个火人(好人)，飞去了(回去了)", at first I was puzzled, because it just doesn't seem to work in Putonghua. Then I imagined somebody saying 一个好人，回去了 with a Hunan accent, and although it's not perfect, the pun seems to work better.

Apr 5, 2007 22:57	#7
MAY001 Points: Join Date: Sep 28, 2005 Status: Offline	Wow, maybe I can have a try in Xian dialect and find some new feeling.

Oct 15, 2007 08:30	#8
GUEST92220	hello,i'm crystal. i am a primary school teacher and my major is chinese,if you or your friend want to practice chinese ,i can give you a hand .you can contact me by send e-mail to hotmail.com\|y.ke

Oct 15, 2007 23:44	#9
TUNGSHUNGHWA Points: Join Date: Oct 15, 2007 Status: Offline	haha, i really can easily understand the joke coz i'm chinese :) we will feel very embressy to hear the words like that really rude .haha my MSN hotmail.com\|tungshunghwa if anybody wanna chat with me .

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