Goram?

Which region of China are you from? I am interested to know. How do you think Mandarin "L"'s are pronounced, official Mandarin goes, L
is pretty much like an L .

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Originally posted by Okkay:
I'm sure most chinese people (including me) could tell you that the mixup between R's and L's is not uncommon. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it has something to do with the way L's are pronounced in Mandarin by certain groups of people, in that they actually say something that comes out in between the English "R" and "L" sounds. So depending on the kind of Mandarin they speak, the mixup is more or less pronounced.
One thing I'll always remember (for some reason) was back when we were kids, one time at the swimming pool my mom asked if we needed a towel, and it came out "tower", and we kind of made fun of her for that.

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I think I've heard English speaking people mispronounce pretty often too. For some reason, that's also when folks start making fun that they are Chinese and pull up the corners of their eyes. I think it's a very idiotic thing to pass around.

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Originally posted by Okkay:


Anyways, here's a joke for you all that has to do with this topic:

What do you call a girl with only one leg?

Eileen

What do you call a chinese girl with only one leg?

Irene

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I think the joke's only point is to serve to further spread that myth that all Mandarin speakers have trouble (and in "fact", all Chinese people) with the R and L sound. Which is completely untrue and derisive at the very least.
There might be certain subsets of Chinese coming from very specific region, b/c of their local dialect differences that have difficulty distinguishing those sounds. Exceptions by themselves do not make a rule. Heck, there is a Chinese joke (if you wanted to hear one that isn't meant to make fun of the Chinese) that every step you take in China, you hear a different "sort" of Mandarin - it's not too far from the truth either. Even the "official" Beijing dialect of Mandarin is hardly spoken outside of Beijing.




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Quote:

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Originally posted by kalathena:
I can assure you that English is NOT an easy language to learn. I work with a majority of Spanish-speaking 2nd graders and they have a hell of a time with all of the different phoneme (sound) to letter correspondences we have. Spanish has *almost* a one-to-one correspondence.

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I believe that is exactly my point. The English language has so many exceptions to pronounciation rules and the rest of the grammatical rules. But rarely is it enforced. For example, I know that many Cantonese speakers have an interesting time distinguishing long vowels and short vowels - there is no such thing in the native language. So words like "video" gets pronounced as maybe "veeedeo" or "video" - they sound alike to many Cantonese speakers. *BUT* that same speaker will not be penalized, in understanding, even if misspoken. The same can be said with most of the rest of the English language. Even if a sentence has a grammatical problem. It can still be understood.

Unless if you are taking an English course and your grades depended on it - outside of the classroom, anyone can pretty much slur their way around words, mis-conjugate, poorly or incorrectly structured sentences are still fine. There is a very wide range of latitude as far as acceptance in what rules are applied and which ones aren't.

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Originally posted by kalathena:


There are also plenty of sounds in other languages that English speakers have a near impossible time with. The un-aspirated /p/ of Hindi leaps to mind or most of Hindi's palatal sounds (those made on the roof of the mouth; it has about 3 times more than English does, depending on which segment of the palate the tongue hits) English speakers also have trouble with the glottal fricative of semitic languages and the alveolar fricative of Spanish (the rolled "r").

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I have no doubt that native American English speakers have trouble learning other languages which are more definitive and strict in how words and sounds *must* be pronounced - most other languages have a smaller allowed variance in acceptance on mispronounciation. Since English has such a wide array of acceptability - maybe there is even a linguistic term for it, that I consider it 'lazy' and 'relaxed' attitude towards the English language itself.

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Originally posted by kalathena:


Last fall I had to take a very interesting linguistics class called Language and Culture. Among linguists, the only certainties about language is that 1) Languages *will* change over time and 2) Those changes are entirely unpredictable.

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Well, I certainly agree with that. If I made up something today and start saying it, within 5 years it will likely end up in the OED.

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Originally posted by kalathena:



Any type of qualitative descriptor for languages are considered culturally biased by linguists. Languages are not "simple" or "primitive" or "lazy". They are also not "advanced" or "civilized". They are different and have different sounds, word formation, sentence formation and meaning. Our instructor once asked us why we consider people who take shortcuts in other aspects of life to be "efficient" but someone taking a shortcut in language is "lazy". If it is mutually intelligible then it serves its primary function.

--Kala

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Again, I make no distinction as to whether English is advanced or primitive (or any other language for that matter). The words Lazy doesn't have one restrictive meaning - slothenly. I don't wish to debate whether a language is simple, complex, advanced, civilized, or primitive. If we don't use these words to make qualitative judgements, we might as well throw them out. Linguists and Anthropologists are always so upset when someone makes a qualitative judgement - 'there aren't primitive or advanced societies, there are only different ones'. It's a degree of comparison, it's not a biased opinion. If a language I made up has only 3 words and 2 ways of putting them together, it's a

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From jasonzzzz:
I believe that is exactly my point. The English language has so many exceptions to pronounciation rules and the rest of the grammatical rules. But rarely is it enforced. For example, I know that many Cantonese speakers have an interesting time distinguishing long vowels and short vowels - there is no such thing in the native language. So words like "video" gets pronounced as maybe "veeedeo" or "video" - they sound alike to many Cantonese speakers. *BUT* that same speaker will not be penalized, in understanding, even if misspoken. The same can be said with most of the rest of the English language. Even if a sentence has a grammatical problem. It can still be understood.

Unless if you are taking an English course and your grades depended on it - outside of the classroom, anyone can pretty much slur their way around words, mis-conjugate, poorly or incorrectly structured sentences are still fine. There is a very wide range of latitude as far as acceptance in what rules are applied and which ones aren't.
***************

Sorry to disapoint, but if you are speaking in english, and you mummble, use the wrong words or the wrong structures, your meaning may be understood... but you will also be understood to be an idiot. Or at the least, ignorant.
I speak enough mandarin to get through the basics among my friends and family, but even my incorrect pidgin mandarin is understood. Frowned upon, yes. But understood.

The L sound in mandarin/cantonese: It is there, certainly, but it seems to me that native speakers have trouble in english that depends on where the L is in work. At the front of a word, 'like' as an example, seems easy (I've never hear 'rike'). But when the L is in the middle or end, after a silent/soft vowel or a hard consonant, that seems to be where the trouble occurs. Take the word trouble, actually. I know quite a few chinese adults (came to US/Canada in their 30s) who have trouble with trouble. But that's just my exp.

As for english being unruly, lazy or however you'd like to put it, another term would be flexible. Since the language has borrowed so much from so many languages, there is almost always a way to express something, without resorting to metaphors (which are nearly always culturaly based).

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Originally posted by SCSIwuzzy:


Sorry to disapoint, but if you are speaking in english, and you mummble, use the wrong words or the wrong structures, your meaning may be understood... but you will also be understood to be an idiot. Or at the least, ignorant.
I speak enough mandarin to get through the basics among my friends and family, but even my incorrect pidgin mandarin is understood. Frowned upon, yes. But understood.

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That's my entire point, if you go to most other countries. They are not going to try and understand you - maybe it's b/c we are Americans and we were just born to know only American English ( and apparently damn "proud" of it - sigh ). I don't know if we will brand every single person who mis-speaks a damn fool. Maybe it's just a thing that you and people around you do.
I also don't know to what degree you call your Mandarin "Pidgin Mandarin" (Is it Chinglish ?), so I have no comment regarding that. But I think we are speaking of different contexts here.

Besides, I would rather not go back and read this 3 months old (at least) thread to get a sense of what this entire thing was about in the first place.

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Originally posted by SCSIwuzzy:



The L sound in mandarin/cantonese: It is there, certainly, but it seems to me that native speakers have trouble in english that depends on where the L is in work. At the front of a word, 'like' as an example, seems easy (I've never hear 'rike'). But when the L is in the middle or end, after a silent/soft vowel or a hard consonant, that seems to be where the trouble occurs. Take the word trouble, actually. I know quite a few chinese adults (came to US/Canada in their 30s) who have trouble with trouble. But that's just my exp.

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If the L is in a different place in English. Phoenetically, it's a different sound. English is one of those "flexible" languages in the world where it borrowed from way too many different cultures and the damn sounds are all different not only dependent on position within the word, but the word itself and the context.

So, as far as the "L" sound is concerned, we aren't talking about the same thing...

Quote:

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Originally posted by SCSIwuzzy:


As for english being unruly, lazy or however you'd like to put it, another term would be flexible. Since the language has borrowed so much from so many languages, there is almost always a way to express something, without resorting to metaphors (which are nearly always culturaly based).

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hmmmm. no. I am pretty sure I want to use the word "Lazy" to convey "without much care" where as flexible would connote "it has many uses". Where as "Flexible" could also be correct, it's not accurately conveying what I want to say...

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Originally posted by impulsivelad:
I don't know if this is Chinese... probably not since I can't find it translated anywhere but they sure say it a lot.

Example: "Goram, Reavers!"

What does it mean? IS it Chinese? A made up future word? What?

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so, back to the oringinal topic...
I think the "Goram" refered to here, means "Of course!" or "Just as I suspected!" which would make the sentence "Just as I suspected, Reavers!" or something like that.

anyways, just my penny's worth

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Quote:

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Originally posted by kohan:

Quote:

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Originally posted by impulsivelad:
I don't know if this is Chinese... probably not since I can't find it translated anywhere but they sure say it a lot.

Example: "Goram, Reavers!"

What does it mean? IS it Chinese? A made up future word? What?

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so, back to the oringinal topic...
I think the "Goram" refered to here, means "Of course!" or "Just as I suspected!" which would make the sentence "Just as I suspected, Reavers!" or something like that.

anyways, just my penny's worth.

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I think you got a bad penny there, kohan. I don't think it could mean that in the context of the majority of times it is used in the show.

How about in "Serenity" when Badger says, "Well, this is my gorram den." Or in "Objects in Space" when Jubal says "You're not in my gorram mind, you're on my gorram ship!"

I think it is obvious that it is a substitution for goddamn, and more than likely is a result of a commonly mispronounced or slurred use of that word.




wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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