I've been delinquent on a section I promised Brian I would post: a weekly bit of Mandarin that I've picked up. Hopefully, I'll start to absorb some more language soon. But here are the first two editions of your Weekly Mandarin. Enjoy.
Edition 1: Ba Ba
As most of you probably know, correct Mandarin pronunciation includes tones as well as consonant and vowel sounds. Tones allow for an individual syllable to have multiple meanings, similar to the homophones of English. I'll save all of you from the tones in my Mandarin updates and will be writing in my own Jenny-Wei-pinyin, so you may want to look them up before using them on anyone:)
One example of this is the syllable "ba," which means "8", or "pa" can mean "dad," though "ba-ba" ("papa") is more common. Because of this similarity, August 8 (8/8) is considered Father's Day here! So, happy belated Taiwanese Father's Day!
Edition 2: Wo shur lao shuh.
You can imagine that I stick out pretty well here. I'm just not Asian enough to blend in. So sometimes, I'll walk into a store, and before I even open my mouth to show that I have no grasp on Mandarin, the shopkeeper will be looking at me and very clearly thinking "what the heck is this white girl doing in my country--let alone my store?!" The sentence "Wo shur lao shuh," meaning "I am a teacher," has explained it all to the folks I meet. People I've met here are familiar with the idea of foreigners coming to teach English, and are extra friendly once that's explained. I also bet my pronunciation is so bad that they know not to continue speaking Mandarin to me:)
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