The benefits of knowing some pidgin Chinese

Did the other 79 gain some respect for you as well?

Henning, have a heart. Maybe the poor girl was up late watching star trek.

This semester when attending a class on Chinese economics (in English), there were quite a few Mandarin-speaking Chinese students getting a masters in finance who attended, despited this being geared for us Chinese studies majors. Yet they interacted very little with us westerners...and they seemed to have this attitude that we knew nothing of China. One day, our teacher made a comment about how foreigners used to be viewed in China, and were called Foreign Devils. Yet our teacher, only bein able to speak Cantonese (from Hong Kong) wasn't sure how to say it, and the Chinese students were kind of confused what she was trying to say. I pipped up with "洋鬼子" to help them understand... you should have seen their eyes bulge when they realized I knew the words in Chinese....

henning, that's brilliant

this actually reminded me of the time I was in Singapore, so many Chinese students at the university were asleep (not necessarily during lectures, but it was as though they were constantly exhausted).

ahh, but henning speaks much more than pidgin Chinese. And for all you know, your Chinese could have been better than hers....

I have heard in Japan it is acceptable to sleep through parts of meetings not relevant or interesting to yourself. Is this true? Changye? Sounds like a good idea to me.

Hi. Yes, henning, I agree with trevelyan that you speak much more than pidgin Chinese. When I read that story, I cheered for you! heh heh...

Hi henning, If “睡好了吗?” were not a standard Mandarin phrase, I would have had to go over all of my Chinese textbooks again. I’m not sure if this “subjunctive” English sentence is grammatically correct, but anyway I strongly recommend you ask your better half about “睡好了吗?”. Uncle changye is a bit tipsy now, so see you guys again tomorrow morning! 我喝够了！

This reminds me of the time I was teaching some of the first graders that aren't native Danish speakers. One of them is Chinese, very bright and always goofing around, testing the patience of the poor substitute teacher. At one point he was pretending to cry because he didn't want to do his math exercises so I said this to him: 别哭了。 你不是一个宝宝。 For one second he was completely stunned, then he laughed covering his mouth with his hand and actually behaved well for the next five minutes. :-)

The Chinese ones laughed, the rest probably thought I switched into some bizzarre state of mind and started talking in tongues. Or they did not even notice because the "Dynamic Balance Sheet Theory by Schmalenbach" sounded equally familiar*. ;) * no, it was not my idea to teach that subject (or the course as a whole).

I believe 睡好了吗 is correct.

It must be correct. Lots of Chinese speaking Chinese have asked me this question before. Or so I recall...

My problem with this language is: I am never 100% confident. Too often did I hear: "Nobody says so, it sounds a bit awkward...". Actually the worst answer you will get is: "That sentence is totally correct. And that is exaclty why it sounds as if it comes from a robot. Only foreigners will say so" So I sent out disclaimers even when I think it must be right. Guts feeling gets better, but well, it will probably never 到位. ;)

That's classic! So Henning, you're a professor of accounting? I know you work in the ivory tower ;) but I've always wondered what else you do with your incredible intelligence.

P.S. Sorry if I'm being nosy!

睡好了吗 sounds correct to me, the question is does it have the intended meaning : to me it means something like '*did* you sleep well' except it's lacking context as to exactly when (昨晚你睡好了吗？) so it's really something you should have asked *after* she woke up. seems to work anyway!

how about asking 舒不舒服吗?

oops sorry, no '吗' above. well, it doesn't sound so good after all

That's really funny, I remember shocking a couple of guys at uni with my mandarin, and since then we've been really good friends. I wonder what the correct way to say 睡好了吗 would be...?