Ni How Ma?

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:07 pm

I'm just so excited to be learning Chinese by audio book on my commute. I can already say useful things like "I don't speak Chinese". It's fun. I just had to tell someone. And no, I have no plans to go to China.

jack · Post by **jack** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:15 pm

true story. when i was about 19 or 20, i worked in the back of a chinese restaurant in virginia beach. i would deliver the food but also package it up as it was ready. none of the cooks spoke any english so me and my co-workers worked out a deal where if they would teach us how to cuss in chinese (mandarin), we'd teach them to cuss in english. so my chinese vocabulary consists of being able to count to 10 and a few choice random cuss expressions.

and you should have seen the non-chinese waitresses expression when the cooks started calling them douche bags (of course, they had no idea what it meant)

boo how!

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:00 pm

You should watch Firefly. The Chinese insults are great.

the Jazz · Post by **the Jazz** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 10:34 pm

There was this pair of girls in high school whose parents were from China, and they weren't related but they were neighbors and everyone assumed they were sisters... anyway the point is, I think the only reason they taught me any Chinese words is to laugh at me whenever I said them. Are you learning Cantonese or Mandarin?

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:28 am

Mandarin. I can say "I can't speak Chinese."

Wo pu whey shoa putungwha!

I ROCK!!!

the Jazz · Post by **the Jazz** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:53 am

I can say "pork buns" in Cantonese, or wish a curse on you (something to do with falling down stairs I think), but no idea about the English spelling. Pork buns sounds like Captain Planet punching someone though - Geo-POW!

Eric Y. · Post by **Eric Y.** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 10:42 pm

ok jim keep working at it, because now we want to hear a song in chinese

Kapitano · Post by **Kapitano** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 10:43 am

Jim of Seattle wrote:Mandarin. I can say "I can't speak Chinese."
Wo pu whey shoa putungwha!

What are the tones for that?

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:41 am

The Firefly Pinyinary- funny stuff.
http://fireflychinese.home.att.net/phrase1.html

It's great to find out that they're saying stuff like "Motherless Goat of all Motherless Goats".

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:07 pm

tviyh wrote:ok jim keep working at it, because now we want to hear a song in chinese

You do? Well how about my Bad Attraction. Although I don't know what they are saying. But yeah, my singing in Chinese would be fun. I don't understand why my instruction tapes haven't taught me how to say "Wrath of God" yet.

Man 1: Excuse me. Where is the train station?
Man 2: Wrath of god.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 4:57 pm

Today I have been practicing Italian in the car.
-bill

the Jazz · Post by **the Jazz** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:18 pm

All the Italian I know I learned from Brak.

Eric Y. · Post by **Eric Y.** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:30 pm

the Jazz wrote:All the Italian I know I learned from Brak.

stavo guidando giù la strada principale quaranta in mio vecchio camion grande di ripresa!
(courtesy google language tools)

[edit: free online translatey things are so much fun! here's the above, put back into english -- "I was guiding down main road forty in my old large truck of resumption"]

the Jazz · Post by **the Jazz** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:32 pm

Eh? What now? That maketh not sense.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:07 am

i knew all those words except camion and ripresa!
molto bene!
-bill