Speaking in Tongues

Most Mandarin speech sounds much like the “ping pong” jargon westerners envision when they think of Chinese. But often words sound like something familiar. For example, “how” means “good” and “knee” means “you”. To say hello in China you simply ask about someone’s leg joint, “Knee how?” There’s even the rare onomatopoeia like the word for “cat” – “mao”. But more often what we English speakers hear isn’t what’s meant. If you say “Hong Kong” to a Chinese person, you are asking to send something “by airmail”. So for kicks, inspired by my Mandarin floundering of late, here’s a list of my

TOP 5 “That’s not what I meant” Chinese terms

5) Shoe = book (but they also use it to herd livestock, as in SHOO!)
4) WHOA! = me, I
3) Mayo = don’t have (one of the most common phrases heard by foreigners. It can also mean “get lost, Whitey, I don’t want to deal with you.”)
2) WOO, fun! = 5 minutes
And, the Palestinians would have a field day with this one
#1) “Jew” = pig (Hey, I’m not making this stuff up!) (more…)