Comments on: Subway

By: trevelyan

trevelyan — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:03:25 +0000

> How often do foreigners find it necessary to use Chinese in a Subway?

I use it all the time, although this is the mainland.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:17:08 +0000

Great lesson. If I ever make it back to China, I’ll be sure to stop in for a foot-long 起司牛排.

Your pinyin tooltips are a wonder to behold, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing them.

By: Laoban

Laoban — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:48:18 +0000

I wish the popups were simplified/translation/pinyin, but then again, i don’t have to do the work to make it happen. I don’t have any problem with speaking Chinese in places like Subway. You do what you have to do to increase or maintain your hard won language skills. These places are great for the learner because you know if your Chinese gets a blank look, they will be able to speak English and rescue you. I don’t think you can be criticised for speaking Chinese to Chinese people in a shop in China.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:04:29 +0000

then write something useful, like how to order in a night market, and include the pinyin in addition to the characters. And if the locals prefer to write Gaoxiong as Kaohsiung, you should respect that.

The night market stuff is definitely coming. Up until this point, all I have is the “red bean cookie” post (javascript pop-up annotations). I assume you suggested I use pinyin because students of Chinese would be able to use it to know how to pronounce characters they haven’t yet read. The same is true of 高雄. I was in Taiwan for nearly six months before I saw 高雄 written as Gāoxióng on Mark Swafford’s old site and finally realized how that city’s name was actually pronounced. Other foreigners new to Taiwan (as well as those living on the mainland) could likely benefit from pinyin just as I did.

Even to this day, I have no idea of whether if people used to Taiwan-ized romanization can tell how to pronounce “hsiung”, but I’m 100% certain that there’s no way to tell whether “kao” is actually “kao” or if it should have been “gao”. That’s why I use pinyin. If it’s useful for anybody in the same boat I was in a few years ago, it’s a success. Guys like you know how to pronounce the place name either way.

One thing I should add is that I’ve never in my life met a Taiwanese person who has strong feelings about how to romanize Chinese characters. I’m sure there are a few, such as Yu Boquan, the creator of Tongyong. But every single Taiwanese person to whom I’ve explained the plight of character illiterate foreigners has been pretty understanding. In fact, many were pretty curious about pinyin after learning that it maps to zhuyin 1-1 at the syllable level.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:55:06 +0000

John, I think I understand your confusion. All the Chinese characters in this post have pinyin and English translations in javascript pop-ups when you hover your mouse over them. I actually spent a few hours encoding everything, and I was hoping it would be helpful for students who actually want to use Chinese when they come to Taiwan. I had several classmates back when I was at Shida’s Mandarin center that were interested in doing just that… even at Subway.

From your reaction, it appears that the pop-ups don’t work in your browser. I’ve already tested them on all the major browsers, but maybe you have a different configuration. Could you let me know what version of what browser you’re running? Also, please let me know if you changed any of your default javascript settings. If there’s anything I can do to make the annotation pop-ups more accessible, I will.

By: john mackay

john mackay — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 15:59:00 +0000

And I’m sure the Taiwanese really appreciate it when a foreigner points out to them that they’re spelling the names of their cities incorrectly.
BTW, what’s the point of the Subway article? How often do foreigners find it necessary to use Chinese in a Subway? The staff is usually pretty capable in English, and even if they’re not, everything is written in English as well as Chinese. And come on, writing what to say in characters without the pinyin is not helping anybody, it’s just showing off. Look at me! I can write Chinese! Anybody who can read the Chinese in your story already knows how to order in Chinese at a Subway!
If you don’t want to come off as being pretentious, then write something useful, like how to order in a night market, and include the pinyin in addition to the characters. And if the locals prefer to write Gaoxiong as Kaohsiung, you should respect that.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 06:00:04 +0000

I’m sorry you feel that way, John. I use standard pinyin because it’s the system I, along with millions of other “pretentious foreigners”, learned in Chinese class. Last year, I wrote a post just for people who ask this question: Why is táibĕi Taipei?

By: john mackay

john mackay — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 00:17:15 +0000

The truly prentious foreigners are those who insist on spelling Taipei as “Taibei”, Kaohsiung as “Gaoxiong” and so on in their blogs.

By: poagao

poagao — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:08:51 +0000

One time I heard a foreigner get upset at all the “pretentious” foreigners who order at Subway in Chinese. Oh the humanity.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 14:02:59 +0000

Well, hmm… you and TC are both better photographers (and translators) than I am. If you get me the images and I know how to translate everything, I’d be glad to encode it into a pop-up lesson.

As you pointed out, though, I am a pretty lousy typist. You may get a pop-ups that say “breed” instead of “bread”.