Lucy Liu teaches the 4 tones on David Letterman

That was fun! Thanks for posting this!

xiaohu, that ABC 的 representative

So the Chinese alphabet is phonetic - John: sit up and take notice!! And everyone speaks English in China - Why are we bothering here??

Yeah, I definately thought the way she explained it was about as clear as 泥！ Maybe she just wanted to preserve the mistique surrounding the language. Chinese is the Ancient Chinese secret 对吧？ urbandweller: 你说得对， 她可漂亮了！

天哪！I wondered why the question of languages was brought up in the first place here ... you know these interviews are generally choreographed. The question just seemed to be like 晴天霹雳 (qíngtiān pīlì -- a bolt out of the blue), not really related to anything preceding it or following it. Poor Dave, I used to really enjoy his shows when I was growing up.

Scotts23 Yeah, Dave has definatley lost his lustre recently. He was at the top of his form when he first moved to CBS, now he seems like a mere shell of his former self.

MikeinEwshot, I had the same initial response as you did regarding the "phonetic alphabet", but in her defense, she was responding to Dave's use of the word "alphabet" and although I know very little about it, I believe Bopomofo (Zhuyin) is more popular in Taiwan and is thought of as a sort of phonemic alphabet. She surely could have explained it better, but as urbandweller mentioned, I think she was a bit nervous.

scotts23, I agree that the questions were probably scripted. I guess she was trying to set it up with the rickshaw comment but it didn't flow too well...

Bryan - you clearly have succumbed to her charms! Actually I might be susceptible too - best to look away. I thought her Mandarin accent was pretty good.

Does she say? 你好吗？我的名字是刘玉玲。您贵姓？

She seemed a little nervous and was maybe caught off guard by the question. That could be why she didnt explain it very well. Ta hen piaoliang!

Have you noticed her surname is almost always pronounced wrong in English? I'm guilty of saying 'lu' instead of 'liu'.

Bazza, 我觉得你写的对。 Wouldn't "你好吗?" usually be reserved for asking someone (whom you already know) how they're doing？ If so, it doesn't seem to fit with the formal "您贵姓?" Also, is it common to use "我的名字是..." rather than 我叫... (or 我的名字叫...)? I believe I remember hearing somewhere that "我的名字是..." was not as commonly used among native speakers. Is this true?

Yeah, she definitely seemed nervous while explaining the Chinese and didn't do that great. I'm sure she grew up speaking Chinese with her family but it's definitely not native level or anything so I wouldn't analyze what she says too much. You'd probably be better off asking a native speaker. I am Yi Jian Lian's translator in the NBA when he comes to L.A. and I get nervous on TV too and I don't speak Chinese as well as normal with the camera in front of me so I'm sure she was experiencing those same feelings.

gregmcgrath, So how do you get into the translation game anyway? Do you need to get an agent or something?

whoa...I actually thought her accent was kinda neat, but maybe it sounds a bit like ghetto chinese, 对不对？(I don't have a native ear so don't take me too seriously on that.)

I don't think her Chinese sounds particularly "Ghetto" I thought it was fine and I've heard much worse in my neighborhood from 广东人 and the infamous ABC! In fact was at Costco the other and an ABC was trying to sell some rewards program to the Chinese person in line ahead of me. Her Chinese was SO broken it was unintelligible! She approaches the Chinese person ahead of me and starts pitching the program. The person in line asks her, "你会说普通话吗" She answers, "可以" then goes into her speal... "这个 rewards program 很好，而且很 save money 的。 如果你 spend 1000 块的话我们要把 10 percent return 给你!。 如果 at the end of the year 你觉得 你没有 save 很多的话我们要把这个 Memberhip fee return 给你， 所以 you can see 没有 risk 因为是 100 percent guaranteed!" The person in line ahead of me politely declined after which I asked if they understood what she was saying, the Chinese person replied, "唉呀。。。我一点都不懂她什么意思？ 可烦人了!" Compared with the ABC, Lucy Liu's Chinese is the best you've ever heard!

Bazza: What I found interesting is that she didn't correct Dave (or the rest of America) for always pronouncing it wrong. I'm guessing she lets it go, because Lucy Lu sounds cooler to most Americans than Lucy Liu. Very hip-hop. Anyway, I, for one, refuse to say it wrong any more.

xiaohu: as far as your question about how I got the Yi Jian Lian translating job, it was just through a friend of a friend. I don't have an agent or anything.

I have found that one advantage of knowing Zhuyin, aka bo po mo fo, (and you can probably learn it in a day or so) is that many Chinese-language children's books and primary school readers out of Taiwan use it along with the characters. Such books seem much easier to find, at least in Vancouver's public library, than books with Pinyin and characters. A Pinyin-bopomofo comparison chart is here: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/2/21/200px-Zhuyin_by_similarities.png