User Comments - xijunw

Posted on: That's Not Your Food

Though I'm a Chinese following EnglishPod, I found that ChinesePod is also interesting, and helpful for English. Thanks!

Posted on: The First Tone

You are right!

Posted on: The First Tone

Think about in English "you light a light, and it is light"...you will probably never get confused. Don't worry, get used to it.

But you are right, sometimes we may be confused. Acctually, there are many chinese jokes about the words with different meaning, the most famous one for Americans would be 干货(dry goods), in some selling counters of Chinese in US, it is translated as "fucking goods" :P (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=79881281973)

Posted on: The First Tone

I think the most important Chinese character with first tone is the word: "ma" (妈，mom). This shows how important it is the first tone(flat,), without any up and down, because baby can not pronounce complex word, yeah? But "ba"(爸, dad) is the second tone (down).

Interestingly, "Nai" (奶，grandma) is the third tone(down then up), and "Ye" (爷, grandpa) is the fouth tone(up). Why these four family members cover the four tone of Chinese character? It that related to the tradition to be good to the older? or just by happen?

By the way, when we Chinese call "mom" and "dad", usually the characters are in pair, i.e. "ma ma"(妈妈) "ba ba"(爸爸)"ye ye"(爷爷)"nai nai"(奶奶), and the second word will loss the tone, -- toneless, short and very light, can you image how to pronounce that? (hints: think about any bisyllable word such as "light", the first phone, "ligh" is sound like a down tone of Chinese, and the second phone "t" corresponds a toneless character).

So, why do Chinese make the single Characters double to make a word, while the meaning of the single character is complete? Maybe just to avoid confusion, you know, there are always a few characters share the same sound.