One thing this has really given me an appreciation for is how difficult a language English can be. We like to think of it as being mostly logical, and assume (incorrectly) that it would be easier for a Chinese to learn English than for an English speaker to learn Chinese. I used to believe this until I was asked to explain some of the things that my employee asks me. Today, for instance, he asked me to explain what “set up” means. Now, think for a second of how many ways this could be used. It could be describing someone being framed for a crime: “I’m being set up!” It could be used for “setting up” a company or business. It can also mean that one of your friends wants to “set you up” on a blind date. It can mean assembling something, as in “I have to set up the furniture I bought at Ikea.” There are probably ten other ways this phrase can be used.
Sometimes they ask me phrases and while I understand perfectly what they mean I find it impossible to explain them in terms the Chinese can understand. Then, on top of that, there are ridiculous phrases like “It’s raining cats and dogs.” What the hell does that mean? I’m sure there’s some origin for it somewhere, but it’s not like there are literally dogs and cats falling from the sky.
Thus it was with great interest that I came across the following, posted on a local BBS forum frequented by Beijing’s expats.
You think English is easy???
Read to the end . . . a new twist
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’
It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car . At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. I f you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP ..
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so......... it is time to shut UP!
I think my favorite English quirk of this type is the word “disgruntled.” Why can you be “disgruntled” but not “gruntled?”
I’ll tell you one thing I figured out, though, is why Chinese immigrants to America and other English-speaking nations speak in the manner they do. When I’m in Chinese class the teacher will give us a sentence in English and ask us to say it in Chinese. Take something like “I’m going to Shanghai on Saturday to have a meeting.” The order of words is specific in Chinese. You’d have to say “Saturday me to Shanghai have meeting.” The teacher is always correcting us after we translate, “Use Chinese word order.”
Now, think of your stereotypical Chinese immigrant speaking English. They might say something like, “Me no want you go home!” In proper English you might say this as, “I don’t want you do leave” But in Chinese you would literally say “Me no want you do that.” There are no real adverbs or indefinite articles, no past or present tense on words, it’s a very simplistic language. There is no difference between “me” and “I,” nor is there a difference between “want” and “need.” The Chinese always like to say a sentence using the smallest number of words possible. If someone offers you something and you don’t want it you just say “bu yao” which means “no want.” If you want to be fancy you can say “Wo bu yao” which means “Me no want.” If you’re in a restaurant and want a menu you don’t have to say “Excuse me, do you have a menu?” Technically you could—Qing, you meiyou caidan ma?—but the usual an customary way is to just say caidan, which means “menu.” (Literally cai means “dish,” as in a prepared item of food, and dan means something like “card” or “piece of paper.” In literal terms you’re asking for the piece of paper with the list of food items on it.)
In English the word menu means “list of things you can choose from.” (Think of the word “menu” in terms of a computer.) The Chinese don’t use the word “menu” in the same manner, it means “food list.” They have a completely different word for the list of items on a computer.
When you hear a Chinese immigrant speaking in a stereotypical Chinese manner, the reason they are doing so is because they’re using Chinese word order and simply translating the words into English. Honestly, learning this language has been one of the most interesting things about my time here. Anyone can learn Spanish or French (not that I did, of course, I took German in high school and can only remember how to count to ten) but Chinese is like trying to learn Klingon.
I’m actually just starting to get good enough with the basics of the language to where I can get in a taxi and tell clearly tell the guy where I want to go. Since these are phrases I use almost daily I can say them near perfectly in Chinese, using the correct tones for the words. Often times this makes the taxi driver think I am one of the few barbarian foreigners who have taken the time to learn their civilized language and he’ll try and spark up a conversation with me. It’s then that I have to sheepishly grin and say, like a retard, Duibuqi, wo ting bu dong. Wode Zhongwen bu hao. This means “Sorry, I hear you but I do not understand you. My Chinese is not good.” Or, if the guy looks like he has a sense of humor, I’ll say Lao wei bu zhidao Zhongwen, meaning more or less “Foreigner is ignorant of Chinese language.”
One of the head guys at the parent company of the my company has lived here for something like 16 years and speaks Chinese fluently. One day I asked him how long it took him to learn the language. He looked at me and said, “I’m still learning it.”
Click Here for Less...
