Results tagged “language”

And he got the characters right. 冠軍 means "champion" (he's using traditional characters). The other side says "Chatty." According to Artest's Twitter page, Chatty is the name of a friend who passed away. On Twitter, Artest also says he flew in Boogie the barber from Orlando for the cut and paid him a hotel room plus $20. Artest and the Lakers begin their quest to prove the left side of his head correct at 10:30 am Shanghai time against, fittingly, the Clippers. Source: Ball Don't Lie

Shanghai's on a mission to silence Shanghainese before the World Expo comes to town. According to the South China Morning Post, Shanghai authorities are pushing forth their 12th annual Putonghua Promotional Week, a week-long Mandarin campaign that hopes to stop instances of people talking only in the Shanghainese dialect. Besides the Week, the government has also broadcast tv and radio adverts in recent months that portray Shanghainese as "uncivilized or backward." The Global Times outlines some of the reactions to official efforts to wipe out Shanghainese, pointing out that it's disappearing on its own anyway and that something precious will probably disappear along with it. "Once the dialect is lost," says Ma Lili, deputy chief director of the Hu Opera Theater of Shanghai, "the culture will surely follow."

石室诗士施氏，嗜食狮，誓食十狮。适施氏时时适市视狮。十时，适十狮适市。是时，适施氏适市。氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始试食是十狮尸。食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。试释是事。

A Chinese character has finally been created for the new equine breed -- caonima (草泥马) or "grass mud horse" -- that's been galloping amok on the Chinese interwebs much to the chagrin of the Net Nanny. The 艹 radical refers to 'grass' (草), 尼resembles泥 and both are homophones, while 马is the character for 'horse'. The new character even has a recommended pronunciation -- Jia4 or Yu2. [h/t to Isaac Mao]

Danwei recently wrote an excellent post an on a new graphic novel we would love to get a peek at called Tibetan Rock Dog by rock star, Zheng Jun. Zheng Jun, combines his interest in animals, cartoons and music to create a graphic novel that he hopes will "give ourselves the decent childhood we missed, a deluxe childhood that a healthy, happy individual ought to have." Zheng Jun sees the graphic novel as a medium for adults to "enjoy the storied benefits of childhood."

Youku Buzz points us to this video of Chris Pereira singing The Star Spangled Banner in Chinese. We must say this impassioned rendition of the US anthem brought a single tear to our eye. And this guy is not even American — he's Canadian.

Biology student Xu Peng from Shanghai's Fudan University has emerged winner of the CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest, China's top English-language oratorical competition.

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than to read "U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s election day victory speech translated into '半白化文,' a version of written Chinese considered somewhere between the classical and modern-day scripts, maybe closer to the former"? OK, there are likely much better ways to celebrate Turkey Day. But aren't you curious? Click here. [56minus1.com]

Just in case you were looking for it.

The ATM at our local ICBC bank on the corner of Huaihai Zhong Lu and Xingguo Lu has a very fancy name: "Cash Recycling Machine". We're half tempted to try what this guy did and see if it will take our fake notes.

Welcome to the latest edition of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we bring you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the latest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the latest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the latest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the latest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the newest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the newest episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese.

Shanghaihua, or Shanghainese, the language (or, well dialect, officially) spoken by the city's inhabitants will now enter a new era. From having been a completely spoken language, Shanghai urbanites will now be able to write and type what they are saying.

    

In an article about official Olympic protest areas, the Wall Street Journal linked to some scanned pages from Olympic Security English, a training manual for Olympic police. We have reproduced those pages for your enjoyment.

Despite both China and Taiwan having agreed way back in 1989 that the latter would compete at the Olympics under the name "Chinese Taipei" and “Zhonghua Taipei" (中华台北) as the designated Chinese translation of that term, spokesman Yang Yi of China's Taiwan Affairs Office has suggested that "Zhongguo Taipei" (中国台北) is just as valid as an Olympic designator, sparking a protest from Taipei's Mainland Affairs Council because the name implies that Taiwan is a part of China ("Zhonghua" refers to an undefined Chinese nation). Oh yes, let the Games begin. And no prizes for guessing which term you will hear more of in August. [Source]

... then please, at least make sure it works!

As any English speaker knows, reading translated menus can sometimes be more mind-boggling than struggling through the Chinese. With that in mind, the government has come up with a booklet of 2,000 translated titles for different dishes, which it is distributing to Beijing hotels in time for the Olympics. Sorry kids, no more "Chicken without sexual life." It's "Steamed pullet" now. [Source]

... the Two Chinese Characters are here to help. Seriously, we've seen this cartoon sent around the Internet a million times, but we had no idea the logo of the Beijing Olympics was meant to be a stylised form of the character for "jing" (京).

Judging from our observations of our friends, we would say that if formal education fails, watching Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Korean, and Japanese TV shows, along with a healthy dose of Cantopop at the karaoke joint ought to get you started on traditional characters. Most PRC Chinese can read, if not write, traditional characters, but we suppose that's not the same as being formally educated in the subject. Anyhow, we think that, if it happens, it'd be a step in the right direction. Not as big a step as say democracy and free elections, but we're really into keeping our expectations low.

We were hoping that they were going to do one of those double episode things and release episodes 11 and 12 of Prison Break at the same time. We had just finished watching episode 11 on a video site and were looking for episode 12, and found this site, which said it had it .

As if there weren't already enough people studying English in China, Reuters finds that the Olympics has also been yet another factor in the English-language frenzy. Actually, if we didn't know better, this clip would have led us to believe that only retirees study the language in China.