Shel

@shel

The Transsexual Chofetz Chaim

she/her
shelraphen.com/

Mutant, librarian, poet, union rabble rouser, dog, Ashkenazi Jewish. Neuroweird, bodyweird, mostly sleepy.

I write about transformative justice, community, love, Judaism, Neurodivergence, mental health, Disability, geography, rivers, labor, and libraries; through poetry, opinionated essays, and short fiction.

I review Schoolhouse Rock! songs at @PropagandaRock

Website (RSS + Newsletter)

shelraphen.com/

Website League

soc.lizard.tools/@shel

Shel @shel8/3/2023, 4:42 PM

I love the Chinese particular 吧 that turns sentences into suggestions. It turns "We go to the park" into "Let's go to the park :)" and "You drink more water" into "Have you considered drinking more water?" It's not a command particle because commands work the same as English, you just say the verb without a pronoun¹. It's not a request, for those you say please at the beginning like in English. It's just a suggestion!

In English to make a suggestion you have to use really elaborate framings around what is grammatically a command or request. "have you considered..." "Why don't you..." "Maybe you could..." or even saying "Would you like a suggestion? How about you try..." you really have to put effort into softening things so it parses as a gentle suggestion and not telling them what to do.

In Chinese though it's just "Shampoo less often so your scalp doesn't dry out. Just a suggestion :)" at least grammatically.

I think this is why Chinese speakers speaking in English are often stereotyped as bossy, blunt, and overly direct². It's rude in English to just tell someone "Use hair conditioner." That's not a suggestion it's a command—a criticism even. In Chinese it's "Use hair conditioner吧” and now it's just a suggestion! You don't have to do it! It's fine! Just some friendly advice!

for positive commands. But negative commands you say 不要 which is basically just "don't"
Chinese mothers and Jewish mothers tend share stereotypes. "Use this lotion on your skin 😐 Button your blouse 😐 Comb your hair 😐" like they're just giving constant criticism and orders when actually it's just meant as loving advice and suggestions because they want what's best for you in their opinions. Although I can't say I know in Yiddish of a way to make a gentle suggestion. I never got that far in my learning. Although Yiddish doesn't even have a word for please. You make requests by saying "Be so good and do this" basically framing your request as "A good kid would do as I tell you" hahaha so maybe Jewish mothers really are making criticisms

#linguistics

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in reply to @shel's post:

Mousetooth Creations @mousetooth8/3/2023, 4:56 PM

I've been working on learning Chinese the past couple months and have had similar thoughts about 吧!! It's something I wish we had a good equivalent of in English.

There are a surprising number of shared stereotypes abt Chinese and Jewish culture [in the US, ie chinese americans / jewish americans], esp when you look at historical attitudes about Jews in the US. I won't write some whole long essay about it here in the comments of your post but I do keep noticing it!

Shel @shel8/3/2023, 5:01 PM

It's something that comes up for me a lot as a Jewish person who grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly a mix of Jewish and Chinese people and now work in a neighborhood that's very predominantly Chinese and Jewish.

Although what's interesting is that a lot of the stereotypes and traits that are shared are mostly Chinese*-Americans* and recent immigrants and less-so pertaining to like, mainland Han people living in Shenzhen or something. I wonder if something about the experience of being an immigrant is a part of what contributes to it

squircular reasoning @spiders8/3/2023, 5:24 PM

i really love "bluntness" or directness as a linguistic/cultural thing honestly. like i hate in english having to tiptoe my way around 30 different linguistic traps in order to say things nicely

toki pona to some degree kind of also has this culture of directness and bluntness, because in a conlang where you have to break down things into component semantic associations in order to talk about them, you can't afford to tip toe around things with euphemisms or whatever.

there's no word for "please" or "thank you" because if you're saying something in toki pona, it is assumed to be polite by default! why would you need special words whose only purpose is to increase politeness. its the language of good after all. the way you ask a yes or no question is either by doing a chinese style "verb-not-verb" or by ending the question with "or what?" "are you coming or what?"

Shel @shel8/3/2023, 6:50 PM

Doing Duolingo Chinese really highlights this for me cuz translating stuff into Chinese it's like

"I'm going to the store today"

"我今天去商店“

I today go store

And then it'll ask me to translate back into English and I get it wrong because I forget some random unnecessary particle word like

"我今天去商店“

"I am going to go to the store today"

Like wow what was four words in Chinese is 9 words in English!!!!! That's almost twice as many words!!

Shel @shel8/3/2023, 6:52 PM

And don't get me started on how Duolingo translates 想 as "would like to" that's insane that in English it takes THREE WORDS to say a ONE SYLLABLE WORD in Chinese. Because 想 is like, a gentler form of "want" than 要 which means more than just "want" but when used for "want" is much stronger so it's like okay to distinguish it from 想 we'll make that one "want" and the more common one you'll be using more often "would like to"

squircular reasoning @spiders8/3/2023, 7:10 PM

YEAH LMAO

your crotchety Aunt Mildred, who thinks she owns the Place @squidlarkin8/3/2023, 9:06 PM

clearly it should be "wanna", right?

Shel @shel8/3/2023, 10:11 PM

It's more complicated than that. Chinese actually doesn't have a direct word translation for "want". 要 sorta means like, something is going to happen (not the same as future tense.) So if you used it for want it's like saying "I'll have a coffee" when placing an order or "I'm going to lose weight!!" To mean "I want to lose weight and am very determined" (example from my learning Chinese resources) but if you used it for "I want to go to Italy" the response would be "oh yeah? When are you going?" Since it also means "I'm going to Italy."

想 means like, you're seeing something in your mind, so when used for want its kinda like "I'm thinking pizza for dinner" but it also gets used for other times you're envisioning something that isn't desiring it. So if you used it for "I want to go to Italy" it implies it's just a fantasy and you don't have any plans to do it.

Zorzamoth // 潘玉宝 @Zorzamoth8/4/2023, 1:08 AM

Duolingo is probably the worst app to learn Chinese, to the point that several people told me that it might hurt your Chinese instead of helping you learn it! They improved a bit lately by adding some basic pinyin and tone explanations, but they are still so lacking!

HelloChinese does a much better job at introducing the concepts, explaining the grammar, including a better variety of exercises, letting you try a bit of calligraphy and presenting you with native audio. They will give you the basics to dabble into the language with less lessons, and then after that they have a good "immersion" section.

ChineseSkill should also be better! I haven't used that one for long, bit they already did a better job than Duolingo by explaining the origin of certain characters and all. Also they have a cute panda, everyone hates that 猫头鹰.

Also yes! I love the simplicity of adding a particle at the end of a sentence to turn his meaning into something else. 马，吧，了...

As for 想, i tend to think about it as "want" versus 要 as "need". I know it isn't 100% accurate, and then you have things like 需要 or 真想 and have to add layers of necessity... but it helped me at first.

加油！

Shel @shel8/4/2023, 2:51 AM

I was using HelloChinese and it's soooooo much better in so many ways but then I hit the end of the free lessons and the price to continue is like.... It's a lot.... Like it's not really in my budget rn it would be better to just take an actual class but I can't fit it into my schedule either soooo I'm just settling for Duolingo and watching shuoshuo on YouTube

Zorzamoth // 潘玉宝 @Zorzamoth8/4/2023, 10:28 AM

Well, maybe you know about this one, but the thing that is really boosting my Chinese learning in every aspect (language, culture, media, history, cuisine, etc etc) is this Discord server. It's full of nice people from all backgrounds: native speakers, heritage, language learning freaks (affectionate), chill people learning at their own pace, complete beginners, people only interested in the BL manhuas/donghuas...

There are a lot of different channels, including optative daily/weekly challenges, and is a place safe from homophobia/transphobia/etc.

It can be a bit intimidating at first! But once you find the contents that interest you and silence the rest, it becomes easier.

In case you feel like joining, I'll leave the link. Of course, no hard feelings if you don't want to, or try it and feel like it isn't your place for whatever the reason!

https://discord.gg/kanjuxuehanyu

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