[China] Do you speak Chinese...?? And if so....

[Shadowdh]

Hi all,

Just wondering how many of us spoke Chinese. Seeing as we practice a Chinese MA it would be interesting to find out

1 - how many of us also spoke Chinese

and

2 - how much does it help with your understanding of the different parts/explanations (especially those that are given in Chinese eg song, gua etc...) that make up Taiji...

I will start; I speak a little Chinese... enough to get me around China and hold basic conversations. I have been completing a degree in Chinese at Uni and will go to China in August for a year to continue my studies and become much more fluent (at least I had better or my much suffering wife will kill me :love: ). As my understanding of Chinese has grown so too has my understanding of explanations my teacher gives when speaking Chinese or using Chinese terms, I believe this has helped me quite a bit in my practice... any others...??

[19thlohan]

I speak Chinese. My first teacher had very poor English So I was always translating for most of my classmates. My teacher started out teaching in Mandarin which was fine but later he realised that most of the Chinese in my area spoke Cantonese so he would try to use that when teaching but would keep slipping back to Mandarin. That confused the hell out of even me for a while but it helped me get better at Cantonese. 17 years later my teacher had learned some English and I only had to translate 2/3 of the class. Since then I've had 2 Mandarin teachers and 3 Cantonese teachers so now, 32 years later, when I teach or try to talk about martial arts with some one I keep going back and forth between both languages and they all look at my like where the hell did he learn Chinese!

[daftyman]

I'm learning it at the moment. Someone loaned me the Pimsleur course. It's pretty good. I say this coming from a background of having learnt German, French and Danish.

The interesting thing for me is how the grammar works and the way the Chinese say things. This in turn should give me a better idea as to what they are talking about.

At present its only helping my pronunciation. As I start to learn the script I am sure that I will begin to see more.

How the characters are made up can also tell you things about the charaters themselves as well I think.

Until then its just a:
fàng zòng fēng kuáng de jié

Don't you just love Firefly!

[Mushroom]

Yes I speak Canotnese.

No it doesnt help me at all :D

Yes I love Firefly. (christina hendricks is lovely/none of my mandarin speaking friends including my Girlfriend, whose from kwanling knows what they're talking about/jewel stait is actually quite tall and lovely)

[Zuarko]

I'm trying to learn now :)

Pretty hard 'cause I didn't find any school near, but practicing with the chinese people of restaurants and shops, some of them are friends, hehe. I find hard the pronunciation

When I learn more and be able to get some Chinese Tai chi info I'll tell you if it helps me ;)

[KuKulzA]

I speak Mandarin good enough for conversation... and I speak Taiwanese good enough to be laughed at... but ya see... English in school is killing my Chinese, little by little... I'm 17 and its still hasn't won... everytime i go to Taiwan, my Mandarin gets better, and when I return to USA my English needs improvement... but then english gets better and my own language is fading away :D its like the tides...

I wish i knew Taiwanese better... my peoples' language... :Angel:

it's helped me a lot in understanding SOME of the Kung Fu I am learning... yes, but much can be conveyed without words, and what is conveyed, english is good for :D

[jujitsuka07]

"Wo ya dao p'yen. Nali ha." (sp?) - "I want to use the restroom. Where at?" (more-or-less ;) )...... :D

[axelb]

I used to speak Manadarin enough for a basic conversation, I was usually better at listening to mandarin then speaking.

It didn't really help normal training as everyone there is english and all the terms were spoken in english.
I have been to taichi classes and although the teachers have know the chinese terms there hasn't been much more of the language than most people can take.

I remember at Judo the gradings being in japanese and as good as I was there was only so much Japanese I could take in. I found it frustrating that you could not get any further in grading if you did not learn the Japanese language regardless of how good your technique was.

The only time it has helped my training was when I was doing wushu with a team from TianJin and the national wushu champs from Beijing who would say various commands in mandarin.

these days it only seems to be there to amuse my mandarin speaking friends :D
one of the few sayings I remember is:
fang pi bu-cho, cho pi bu-fang.
"loud farts don't stink, and the really smelly ones don't make a sound" :D

and the tongue twisters

si shi si (4 is 4)
shi shi shi (10 is 10)

doesn't really translate well without the tones though :D

[KuKulzA]

I agree, tones are everything... like in Taiwanese...
oa (with a big 'o' sound) is taro, oa (with a softer almost 'u' of an o sound) is oyster

'oa tung' is taro OR oyster soup... depending on the tone :)

"Wo ya dao p'yen. Nali ha." (sp?) - "I want to use the restroom. Where at?" (more-or-less ;) )...... :D
hahaha

more like "I want to crap. Where at?" :D

let's try Taiwanese... 'Wa ei boang sai'... well not really...

[slipthejab]

shi shi shi (10 is 10)


in Cantonese if you get your tones wrong on this one it'll come off as:

'sh1t sh1t sh1t' :D

[axelb]

in Cantonese if you get your tones wrong on this one it'll come off as:

'sh1t sh1t sh1t' :D
lol :D

[jujitsuka07]

hahaha

more like "I want to crap. Where at?" :D

Yes, I was trying to be a little subtle, hence the winking smiley face.

[onyomi]

I speak Mandarin and a tiny bit of Taiwanese. It's helpful because one of my teachers doesn't speak English.

[Taijiman]

A few words and phrases. Will be taking a class this summer though, and then moving to Chongqing for a bit next year (and taking more classes).

[succubus]

this week i learnt how to count to ten, colours, some drinks and some basic greetings in Cantonese. go me. :p

cheng nay joy gong dor yut chee.
pardon me, can you say it one more time? :p

[El Tejon]

Some Cantonese and a few phrases in Mandarin. Can read some as well.

Shadow, good for you in studying Chinese. Very bright future for those who are fluent.

[bulldogg]

I have had to learn, five years now in the belly of the beast. Wo tsao ni de baba is a great precursor to a lively sparring match.
:love:
Cantonese is harder but being immersed in the bloody language helps more than a little. Sei bhatt-po

I know more than just the bad stuff but lets face it, learning the naughty bits first is always much more fun... and useful. How much more fun is saying Wo gei ni wo de xiao di di than Ni de hanyu ting hen hao.

[slipthejab]

I have had to learn, five years now in the belly of the beast. Wo tsao ni de baba is a great precursor to a lively sparring match.
:love:
Cantonese is harder but being immersed in the bloody language helps more than a little. Sei bhatt-po

Die bitch... in Cantonese. :p

[Chimpcheng]

That's it, everyone is being modded! :D

Edit: Woah, this is my 3000th post!