Affect of learning Mandarin Chinese on native English speaker
luke1978
January 18, 2014, 01:29 PM posted in General DiscussionHi All,
Just wondering if anybody else has noticed they are using english a bit differently since they started learning Chinese?
My wife stated the other day she noticed something different about how I speak(She only knows english)
In Australia we often say things like "You know what I mean" and lately I often say "My meaning is" which is like:
"我的意思是 - Wǒ de yìsi shì"
I even said to someone the other day "Do you want or not want"(Insert word)
"你要不要 - Nǐ yào bùyào"
I'm not too worried as I'm aware of it(I think) but it is a bit bizarre!
Luke
podster
January 19, 2014, 03:01 AMYeah, I somtimes do that too. I mean, I do that too sometimes. 我有时候也会这样说。
mark
January 20, 2014, 12:06 AMI think I have Chinese and English pretty well compartmentalized, I have noticed a few odd things though: I get crosstalk between other foreign languages and Chinese. This mostly means, if I try to think of a Russian word, or Spanish word a Chinese one comes to mind instead. I am sometimes tempted to say things in Chinese even if my audience is English speaking, if the Chinese seems more expressive. I sometimes have trouble translating Chinese to English, because I think in Chinese when I study Chinese, and it is hard to find a concise way to express my understanding in English.
luke1978
January 18, 2014, 12:23 PM"Effect" not "Affect"
Actually since learning Chinese I have been thinking how my "perfect" english is maybe not so "perfect" so I'm even questioning my own ability to speak english properly!
Even the title of this post doesn't make total sense when I think about it even though most people should get the point. Maybe we become lazy with our native language?