Use of the Chinese language
POSTED BY: EnterpriseX
UPDATED: Saturday, December 7, 2002 03:31
VIEWED: 5614
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I think the actors are probably trying to learn their lines phonetically and hence butchering the inflection and context. They are getting better. In Our Mrs. Reynolds it only took be a couple of viewings to realize that Mal's response to Kaylee's statement was "Mind your own business". I'm still working on what exactly Kaylee said to provoke that response in the first place. If what they are speaking is Mandarin then every sound has four to five possible inflections. Incidently the word for sky and the word for day (as in today, tomorrow, the day after) sound the same. What I find most interesting is their use of the word ain't. I may be wrong be, but outside of the Southern U.S. you rarely hear the phrase used.
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There's a *huge* problem with picking out a few "badly spoken" Chinese phrases.
The reason why the Berlitz language courses don't work for Chinese (You might as well buy flashcards, they will work better if you are traveling and need to just get by) is because many of the words sound the same - even with the correct tones apply; what's more? The tones can vary slightly within the confines of a properly pronounced statement. The real secret to converstional Chinese is the context. Without context, and with only a few words or phrases to attempt a guess at the context. It would be really difficult to figure out what the speaker is trying to convey.
Quote:
Originally posted by EnterpriseX:
I'm a second generation Taiwanese so my Chinese speaking skills suck and my curse word knowledge is extremely limited. I could pick out a few of the phrases used on the show so far, but I'm just not getting the majority of them. Does anyone out there know if they're strickly speaking Mandarin or is some Cantonese sneaking in there like I suspect. It could also be my limited knowledge of the language or just the actors butchering the phrase (even some of the ones I have understood sounded really bad).
If nothing else, the theme song is better than the one on Enterprise :)
EnterpriseX
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ah, but one of the things i like best about the writing on firefly, is that the language *has* changed -- it's not just recycled ye olde westy american english. i especially like all joss's little tricks for getting stuff past the censors -- 'ruttin' is clearly a replacement for 'fuckin', and 'gorramn' for 'goddamn', and both are used with liberal abandon. there's also lots and lots of little instances (which, of course, i can't think of now) where sentence structure does this cute little skip and kick, just enough for you to know that this language is as understandable and yet strange to us as 'wilt thou' and 'howsoever', from 500 years back. for some reason, the prepositional deliciousness of mal's 'what happened about me?' after saffron doped him just had me rolling.
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Quote:My favorite example of this is Yôko Shimada, who managed to play the female lead in an American mini-series (Shogun) with no knowledge of English at all. Her memory must be something else!
Originally posted by EnterpriseX:
Fun, semi-related fact: Many Asian stars (like Jet Li) learn at least part of their line in American films phoenetically. I don't think it would be too hard for English speaking actors to do the reverse.
JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!
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Firefly's use of Chinese actually reminds me of the Japanese anime "Outlaw Stars" and Amy Wong of Mars in Futurama.
The former was about pirates and outlaws in the space frontier, and incidentally the show also started off with a girl in a box...
Anyway, I think it's really cool that the characters on the show use their innate human ability to process different languages seamlessly rather depending on some mechanical gizmo.
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Ok can someone please explain to me what language do the people actually use on firefly?? cuz i really want to know what they r saying!! Ok thanks.
Shal
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haken:
From the The Train Job:
MALCOLM: Well, whut about yo' ass, Shepherd? Y be yo' ass out in da house flyin' about wit' us robba's? Shouldn't yo' ass be off bringin' words o' da damn Lord to da damn fuzzy-wuzzies o' sump'n? True dat.
BOOK: Oh, I have some fat-ass amount o' sucka's right in da house.
*hysterics*
Someone's GOT to get that to Joss and the Firefly crew. STAT!
- soleta
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