Several people have said something like light47 -"I did find the boss's phrase 对不起 interesting because of how she used the tone of her voice. Because Chinese is already a tonal language, I don't know how to add inflections to words. It's complicated to still make the right tones, but to add an additional inflection to what you're saying. Can you do it in a similar way to English for incredulity, sarcasm, questioning, etc.?"
To me it sounds as if the voice in this case is pitched higher, and the final tone especially is exaggerated. Just listen and imitate. After that you can think about the rules.
Posted on: Caught in the Act
August 26, 2008 at 2:11 AMSeveral people have said something like light47 -"I did find the boss's phrase 对不起 interesting because of how she used the tone of her voice. Because Chinese is already a tonal language, I don't know how to add inflections to words. It's complicated to still make the right tones, but to add an additional inflection to what you're saying. Can you do it in a similar way to English for incredulity, sarcasm, questioning, etc.?"
To me it sounds as if the voice in this case is pitched higher, and the final tone especially is exaggerated. Just listen and imitate. After that you can think about the rules.
Also: Thanks to
jennyzhu says
One more word for supplementary vocab:
亲热/qin1 re4/ to make out
他们在亲热/ta1 men zai4 qin1 re4/they are making out.
DeFrancis gives the meaning of 'qinre' as 'intimate, warm, affectionate', so presumably this is a euphemism.