Oh, those tones!

Last Thursday with our time with our Chinese tutor, Mark worked on an introductory ‘paragraph’ that he can use to talk to people around town. So I thought I would use it to practice my hanzi.

我叫马克。我的英文名字是MARK。这是我的老婆。她的英文名子是CHERYL。 去年八月我们来北京了。所以我们在这人住了一年零两个月了。我们有四个孩子：两个奴儿和连个儿子。他们都住在美国。我们的大奴儿是老师。我们的小奴儿是护士(too difficult to explain PTA)，(最近她毕业了）。这个星期她开始工作了。我们的儿子都是大学生。我们的大儿子有中国奴朋友。我们觉得日后他们会结婚。下个月我们回美国去,然后明年一月我们中国来。我老婆是汉语学生。每星期一，三，五每天学习三个小时。每星期下午我们跟 L.老师在五道口见面。她教我们汉语。我们也一起聊天人。我是国际教堂的牧师。

Here I inserted a bit of fun with our tutor. I have noticed that some people don’t understand the word ‘mushi’ when Mark tells them what he does for work. So I looked it up on Pleco and discovered the problem. When I showed our tutor the translation of what Mark had been saying, we both cracked up. Tones are everything in Chinese. By the tones Mark used, he was saying he was a wood louse or a lioness. Pastor has different tones!

 I noticed interesting reactions, too, when Mark said 请问。Said one way it means, “Please, may I ask.…” Said with different tones it means, “Please, may I kiss you.” No wonder people ignored him!