Chinese: what do you hear?
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[This is a guest post by Jonathan Smith]
Here's an audio passage from a film I've been watching:
If you know Chinese, test yourself to see how much of it you understand.
And here's a still of the corresponding passage:
I have been using this special time to try to improve my shabby knowledge of Cantonese. In TV shows / movies, on occasion the viewer is shown written text on-screen (texts / emails / letters…) which contrasts with the voice-over in interesting (to me) ways. Not sure how representative this is of how things might work in real life. The letter image above and the voice over are from the series Faan2hak1 反黑 (OCTB [Organized Crime and Triad Bureau]) (some of) which is on Netflix these days. Also I attempted a transcription (see below) which is doubtless off…. Maybe the use of seoi1 衰 in the last line will be of special interest; the Mandarin equivalent falls a bit flat.
Also — sadly Netflix has no Cantonese subs… Google has removed Cantonese translate… etc. So the problem is not just China.
letter written text: 鳳凰哥，我想過了。你是警察。
best effort!! at audio in Jyutping: Fung6wong4 go1, Ngo5 lam2 gwo3 ga3laa3. Lei5 hai6 ging2caat3. Tung4 ngo5 hang4 dak1 taai3 maai4 ci2zung1 deoi3 lei5 dou1 m4 hai6 gam2 hou2. Lei5 cam4maan5 tung4 ngo5 gong2 (??) di1 je5, ngo5 wui5 gei3zyu6 ge3lak3! Ngo5 m4 wui5 seoi1 bei2 lei5 tung4 lou5dau6 tai2 ge3. Lei5 fong3 sam1 aa3. 鳳凰哥，我唸過㗎喇。你係警察。
Sometimes Mandarin speakers have the impression they could understand a fair amount of varieties like Cantonese because texts / songs give the impression that it is just a matter of pronouncing the "characters" a bit differently. But being confronted with sound is different….
[Thanks to Bob Bauer and Abraham Chan]
Calvin said,
April 17, 2020 @ 3:21 pm
A bit of nitpick on the Cantonese transcription: It should start with "鳳凰哥啊(aa3)", and end with "aa1" (I would use 吖 as 呀 can have multiple tones).
Also the actor spoke with a slight accent. For example, 老 (lou5) was sounded to me like 佬(lou2).
David Marjanović said,
April 17, 2020 @ 4:40 pm
It's incredibly fast. I hear Ngo5 lam2 gwo3 ga3laa3. as maybe 2 or 3 syllables with consonant clusters that are definitely not supposed to exist.
Must be the equivalent of the ouv' la f'nèt', s' ' te plaît kind of French.
Jonathan Smith said,
April 17, 2020 @ 7:44 pm
Ah thanks. This is the original sloppy transcription from my email; Abraham Chan and maybe others made some corrections to my learner's mistakes including hang > haang4 / gam2 > gam3 / lak3 > laak3.
But my main question was whether this kind of representation of the contrast between written communication and perceived(?) colloquial equivalent represents reality. We know it is possible to represent these spoken morphemes with non-standard characters, but it seems there are contexts in which so doing is more or less likely?
Chris Button said,
April 18, 2020 @ 4:53 pm
It's a little like Portuguese and Spanish. When written, speakers of either language can usually get a fairly decent grasp of the intended meaning. When spoken, it's another matter entirely. I'd imagine understanding spoken Spanish is easier for a Portuguese speaker than spoken Portuguese for a Spanish speaker, but maybe I'm wrong there. Regardless, they are considered separate languages for a good reason.
B.Ma said,
April 19, 2020 @ 2:01 am
I think that analogy only works with the scene presented here if Portuguese speakers wrote in Spanish, but automatically translated it to Portuguese when reading their written material aloud.
I didn't think the speech was particularly fast. I heard individual syllables for 我唸過㗎喇. However I heard the syllables of 鳳凰 and 始終 to be merged: Fwong4 and ciong2-1.
The scene is meant to evoke a heartfelt kind of emotion. Writing the note in, effectively, Mandarin / standard written Chinese makes it feel more serious, but if it was read literally with Cantonese pronunciation it would sound stilted and awkward.
Hong Kong news anchors read the news in more formal language but still use Cantonese particles. However TV subtitles are in standard Chinese. I wonder if the teleprompters use Cantonese characters, or do they display the same text as the subtitles and the news anchors are trained in on-the-fly substitution?
My father and aunts and uncles use written Chinese even on Whatsapp. This may be because they don't know how to input the Cantonese characters on their phones. But years ago when they were writing informal notes to each other they also wrote them in formal language. I don't know if they do an on-the-fly translation when reading things in their mind's eyes. Personally I don't because I read them in Mandarin.
Chris Button said,
April 19, 2020 @ 6:22 am
@ B. MA
I think that analogy only works with the scene presented here if Portuguese speakers wrote in Spanish, but automatically translated it to Portuguese when reading their written material aloud.
How so? There are so many words that are written the same or almost the same in Spanish and Portuguese, but their actual pronunciations are just so different. As a result, speakers of each language can read a significant amount (notwithstanding entirely different words that can throw them off), but can barely understand a word when spoken. Seems a pretty reasonable analogy to me.
Chris Button said,
April 19, 2020 @ 6:22 am
Sorry let me try again:
How so? There are so many words that are written the same or almost the same in Spanish and Portuguese, but their actual pronunciations are just so different. As a result, speakers of each language can read a significant amount (notwithstanding entirely different words that can throw them off), but can barely understand a word when spoken. Seems a pretty reasonable analogy to me.
Philip Taylor said,
April 19, 2020 @ 8:13 am
Your last comment, Chris, reminds me of an experience in Kyoto some years ago when my Chinese teacher's wife, who spoke no more than a very few basic Japanese polite words and phrases, would go shopping armed with nothing more than the palm of her hand and her index finger. She would draw the Hanzi on her palm, the shop assistant would read them as Kanji, and a satisfactory exchange of goods and money would almost always take place.