Confessions of a Caveman Mandarin Speaker: "不用说了"
Tags: lost in translation, mistakes
I think I was one of the people Ken Carroll referred to when he said certain people show up in China and start saying inappropriate things.
I was informed today that saying "bu2 yong4 shuo1 le " (needless to say) in response to a compliment is considered rude. I thought I was being polite. I don't know how I grabbed this particular phrase, but it came out and seemed right at the time (and unfortunately kept using).
I think I'll stick with "guo4 jiang3" 过奖 or something similar in the future.
I have more mistakes to confess, some worse than above, some on the funny side.
I'm sure there are others that need to confess. Any other stories out there?
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