How to Remember Chinese Tone Order
There are four tones in Chinese, they’re numbered from one to four, and Chinese speakers often refer to them as “first tone, second tone, etc.” To review, the first tone is flat , the second rises , the third dips , and the fourth falls .
Okay… that’s swell and all, but how do you remember which one is first and which one is fourth? It’s easy to get them mixed up and makes reading typed-out pinyin a pain (wo3 yao4 gen1 ni3 shuo1 hua4).
Then one day, I wrote the tone markings side by side: . Revelation time! They looked like a minus M, or -M. The M can even stand for Mandarin. The minus stands for… look, I’m not going to do all the work. Now, whenever I forget if the falling tone is second or fourth, I just have to think of it as it fits into the -M formula.
Making Sense of Chinese Bus Stop Signs
Riding the bus in China isn’t exactly a fun experience, especially when you’re trying to get on during the busy hours (also know as all hours of the day). Eventually, though, you’re going to need to figure out the bus system in your new Chinese city. I know many expats don’t like bothering with the bus stop signs, because they’re too confusing, so we’re going to walk through this together.
The big mass of characters above the word BUS are the names of the bus stops read from top to bottom. The red highlighted one is the stop you’re at right now. The two characters next to the bus stop number, 下站, refer to the next stop. The red numbers in the top-right corner tell us when the first and last bus run (frustratingly, most of the buses end before 9:00).
Don’t forget to look at the top of the sign, which displays the current stop in characters and pinyin. This is a great way to start tying the two together. If you can start recognizing simpler characters like 大 (da) or 中 (zhong) in the names of important bus stops, it makes it a lot easier traveling around town. But if you don’t care to learn how to read Chinese, at least copy the characters (the best you can) in your notebook so you can compare them with other bus signs when you’re ready to return.
But on the bus, none of this will do you much good, because the stops are announced (if at all) in Chinese, and the marquee (if there is one) doesn’t always work. The easiest thing to do is count how many stops are between you and your destination on the sign, then keep track of how many times the bus stops while you’re on it. I know all of this makes perfect sense already, but the first few times you get on a Chinese bus can be pretty scary. Good luck.
Haibao’s Expat Guide: Ordering Noodles
Youtube warning for those reading from China:
When my brother and I were in Changzhou, we wanted to do a series of videos about the Shanghai Expo mascot, Haibao, giving advice to new expats in China. The first (and only) one we did focused on breaking away from the McDonald’s habit and eating local food (”la mian” and “dao xiao mian” noodles).
Alas, the weather got too cold after we finished “ordering noodles” to do anymore filming. Going around town with a Haibao puppet garnered a frustrating amount of attention, anyway. It’s hard to film when everybody wants to stand in front of the camera to watch what you’re doing.
We had some help with the puppetry and voice acting, but all filming and post production was done by JR.
Don’t Give Up on Chinese!
Every few months, I go through my old bedroom in my parents’ house and find new things to give or throw away. On returning from China, it was apparent I don’t do this enough. Man, I have a lot of junk. So I went through everything again and ditched even more stuff. Then the garbage man hauled the trash away, and I wheeled the garbage can back around the house. Curious, I glanced inside the can and saw that one thing didn’t make it into the garbage truck. It was my little case of character flashcards from my Chinese 1010 class.
I guess that’s a sign that I shouldn’t give up learning Chinese just yet. Don’t worry, I haven’t!
Chinese Snack: Suan La Fen
Now that I’ve overindulged on Mexican food, it’s time to reminisce about Chinese cuisines again. Another favorite place of mine to eat in China was at the Ba Jie snack shops. They are most famous for “suan la fen,” an ass-kickingly spicy bowl of noodles with meat balls. It only costs five yuan, and there’s usually a huge line crowd of people waiting to buy it.
But Ba Jie has more than just suan la fen. Their chicken wings (ji chi) are the best chicken wings in China. They’re cheap, too! You’d pay twice as much for the same amount of wings in a sit-down restaurant. And to top it off, you gotta try one of those flat, baked pizza-type… things (called “bing” in Chinese). Be on the lookout.
Chinese Snack: Shou Zhua Bing
One of the first foods I picked up last year was a fried pancake thing called “shou zhua bing.” These little stands are everywhere and are easy to spot, but the quality is erratic. Some people can make them right, and some can’t. Maybe only Taiwanese people know the secret.
Since it is originally from Taiwan, my friends are quick to correct me when I tell them shou zhua bing is one of my favorite Chinese foods. “That’s from Taiwan,” they say sternly. “I said what Chinese food do you like.” Nonetheless… it’s really good.
Once you order one, you can add additional items to it for 1-2 yuan. My favorite combination is an egg (ji dan), bacon (pei gen), and lettuce (sheng cai) with spicy (la de) sauce. Yeah, I know, those sauces look a little unappetizing in that picture.
Chinese Restaurant: Da Niang Dumpling
Malatang shops may not be some of my favorite places to eat, but Da Niang Dumpling is. Da Niang is about as common in a big Chinese city as KFC, except that Da Niang is actually Chinese food. And, hey, interesting fact: Da Niang started in Changzhou. Something good came out of this place, after all!
Eating here can be a little intimidating, though, as everything is in Chinese (I never would’ve guessed), and there aren’t any pictures to point at. Don’t worry, I’ve got it down. The safest things on the menu are “song ren san xian” (pork dumplings with corn and peas… sounds gross but it’s fantastic) and “niu rou fen si tang” (clear noodles in beef broth). If there’s one thing I can do in Chinese, it’s order food!
Five Problems for Chinese English Speakers
Almost everything about English is difficult, and a list of five common problems could consist of nothing but grammar rules. I’ll forgo the really technical stuff, though, and focus mainly on the things that stand out to me the most (and, consequently, bug me the most as an EFL teacher fighting a losing battle).
1. The “th” sound
There aren’t any sounds in Chinese that require the speaker to stick their tongue out, so this completely goes over my students’ heads. Even when I exaggeratedly demonstrate to stick your tongue out while pronouncing words like teeth or thirty or think, they just won’t do it. Maybe it’s too much of a social faux pas.
2. The “arrr” sound
The stereotype that Chinese people pronounce Rs as Ls is horribly misinformed. This is not true. What is a problem, however, is when the R sound is in the middle of a word, such as in dark, shark, or Clark (hey, that’s my name). I know they can pronounce R correctly, but it almost always comes out as “ah” (i.e. dock, shock).
3. Plurals
It seems like a simple rule to add an S on the end when there’s more than one of something, but we have a lot of words (like clothes and mouse) that this doesn’t apply to. Chinese is much simpler, because the word stays the same, only the quantifier changes. Often, my students will just tack on an extra S for everything (i.e. clotheses).
4. He/she
Some of my friends, whose English is ridden with slang and other fluent nuances, still struggle with he/she. They’ll accidentally refer to a boy as a she or a girl as a he. That’s what happens when boys and girls look too much alike! In reality, though, spoken Chinese only has one word for both (ta), so it really is confusing.
5. Verb tenses
They say Chinese is difficult, but how can it be difficult when the language doesn’t have tenses? Words don’t change, unlike English, where we add -ed or -ing on the end depending on when something happened, not to mention all the irregular verbs out there. Students, then, play it safe by sticking to -ing (i.e. I like to swimming).
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