{"id":18825,"date":"2015-05-01T17:26:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T22:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=18825"},"modified":"2015-05-01T21:08:50","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T02:08:50","slug":"omg-american-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=18825","title":{"rendered":"OMG!  American English"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The star of this popular Voice of America program is Jessica Beinecke (B\u00e1i Ji\u00e9 \u767d\u6d01).\u00a0 Her Mandarin is quite amazing; indeed, I would say that it is nothing short of phenomenal.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oUWxHFW7PTI\">Here's a sample<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oUWxHFW7PTI?rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The title of that particular video is \"OMG! \u7f8e\u8bed Pick-up Line <span dir=\"ltr\" title=\"OMG! \u7f8e\u8bed       Pick-up Line Do's &amp; Don'ts!\">Do's &amp; Don'ts!<\/span>\"\u00a0 The Mandarin term in question that she is illustrating is d\u0101sh\u00e0n \u642d\u8baa, which means \"strike up a conversation; smooth over an awkward situation; etc.\"<\/p>\n<p>Before discussing Jessica's incredibly good Mandarin and how it got that way, a couple more notes on the clever title of her show.\u00a0 M\u011biy\u01d4 \u7f8e\u8bed means both \"American English\" and \"beautiful language\".\u00a0 As for \"OMG\", she pronounces it \"oh em gee\", which surprised me a bit, because I've actually never heard it pronounced that way before, though I've certainly seen it written as \"OMG\" countless times.\u00a0 Perhaps it's common for people to say \"oh em gee\", but I myself have not been exposed to it being spoken that way before Jessica's videos.\u00a0 It makes sense, though, to pronounce \"OMG\" as \"oh em gee\", since it doesn't just stand for \"Oh My God\", but can also mean \"Oh my goodness\", \"Oh my gosh\", \"Oh my golly\", or \"Oh my gracious\", and saying \"oh em gee\" preserves the ambiguity of the referent.<\/p>\n<p>Here's the rather sketchy <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jessica_Beinecke\" target=\"_blank\">Wikipedia article on Jessica<\/a> (since she's so young and operating in a niche environment, we're lucky to have this much):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><b>Jessica Beinecke<\/b> [Chinese: \u767d\u6d01 (Bai Jie)] (born about 1987) is an American educator entertainer and journalist. She works for the <a title=\"Mandarin Chinese\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mandarin_Chinese\" target=\"_blank\">Mandarin Chinese<\/a>\u00a0broadcast of <a title=\"Voice of America\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Voice_of_America\" target=\"_blank\">Voice of America<\/a>. Her program is OMG! \u7f8e\u8bed (OMG! Meiyu or OMG! American English) which achieved widespread popularity in <a title=\"China\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/China\" target=\"_blank\">China<\/a> and\u00a0<a title=\"Taiwan\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Taiwan\" target=\"_blank\">Taiwan<\/a>. Her personality and program have been covered in both American and Chinese media. She is a graduate of the <a title=\"E. W. Scripps School of Journalism\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/E._W._Scripps_School_of_Journalism\" target=\"_blank\">E. W. Scripps School of Journalism<\/a> of <a title=\"Ohio         University\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ohio_University\" target=\"_blank\">Ohio University<\/a> and received a graduate degree at Middlebury College in Vermont.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The Washington Post reports that in 2011 her video explaining sleep gunk that can be in your eyes when you wake up in the morning went viral.<\/p>\n<p>In the introduction to her pick-up lines video, she says that her program runs daily from <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1597402289\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday<\/span><\/span> to <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_1597402290\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Friday<\/span><\/span>.\u00a0 If she and her support staff (mostly the show is produced by Jessica herself) can come up with a quality video like this one five days a week, that's all the more impressive, since it means she's versatile and spontaneous, and not restricted to a few well-rehearsed skits.<\/p>\n<p>The big question for me is how Jessica's Mandarin got to be so good.\u00a0 I do not know Jessica, but just judging from the nature of her near native fluency, I would guess that she &#8212; in learning Mandarin &#8212; paid far more attention to speaking and listening than to reading and writing.\u00a0 In fact, she can probably say a lot more than she can read or write.\u00a0 Learners of Mandarin tend to fixate on the characters, and they are often encouraged in this mistaken approach by their teachers, as though the number of characters one has memorized were some sort of index of the level of one's ability in the language.\u00a0 Quite the contrary, paying undue attention to the characters, especially during the first months of the learning process, often cripples one's ability to learn the language.\u00a0 It is far more important to master the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar first, and then worry about the characters later (or never, if reading and writing is not what you're after).\u00a0 Learn Mandarin like a baby, like a native &#8212; without reference to the characters until you are fluent.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a couple of Language Log posts advocating that method:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to How to learn Chinese and       Japanese\" href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=10554\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark\">How to learn Chinese and Japanese<\/a> \" (2\/17\/14)<\/li>\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to How to learn to read       Chinese\" href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark\">How to learn to read Chinese<\/a> \" (5\/25\/08)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And here are a couple more videos from Jessica:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UhUQMrOLyVU\" target=\"_blank\">OMG! \u7f8e\u8bed Yucky GUNK!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UhUQMrOLyVU?rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Note that, in English, she refers to the stuff that comes out of your eyes overnight as \"sleepies\", and in Mandarin as y\u01censh\u01d0 \u773c\u5c4e (lit., \"eye poop\"), which my Shandong in-laws always referred to as y\u01censh\u01d0 baba, where the \"baba\" (which I'm not sure how to write in characters) I think refers to the crusty nature of this dried mucosal discharge.\u00a0 Other English terms for it are rheum and perhaps gum and gound.\u00a0 Sometimes it is just referred to as having \"sleep\" in your eyes.\u00a0 Slang terms for this substance include \"eye boogers\", \"eye mattering\", \"eye gunk\" (as in the title of the video), and \"eye pus\".<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ty7JJIOEMq4\" target=\"_blank\">OMG! \u7f8e\u8bed Bai Jie TOAST!<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ty7JJIOEMq4?rel=0&amp;controls=0&amp;showinfo=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is Jessica's bilingual paean to bagels, baguettes, and bread in general.<\/p>\n<p>According to this Washington Post article of September 14, 2011, when Jessica was already completely fluent and famous in China for her Mandarin ability, this Ohio girl had only been studying the language for five years by that time:<\/p>\n<p>\"\u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/omg-meiyu-a-breakout-hit-web-show-schools-chinese-in-american-slang\/2011\/09\/13\/gIQAXeLJTK_story.html\" target=\"_blank\">OMG Meiyu,\u2019 a breakout hit Web show, schools Chinese in American slang<\/a> \".<\/p>\n<p>With the right methods, it can be achieved; with the wrong methods, it will never happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The star of this popular Voice of America program is Jessica Beinecke (B\u00e1i Ji\u00e9 \u767d\u6d01).\u00a0 Her Mandarin is quite amazing; indeed, I would say that it is nothing short of phenomenal.\u00a0Here's a sample:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,108,184,29,221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bilingualism","category-language-acquisition","category-language-and-education","category-language-teaching-and-learning","category-pedagogy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18825"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18890,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18825\/revisions\/18890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}