These days, I am polishing up my Mandarin. I finally can say volunteer in Mandarin. Yik kung. Yay! And Catholic is ‘tien chu chiau’. Tiok, boh? How to say faith ah? Sing li means what?
I have always been able to speak Mandarin and Cantonese because I learnt them from my nieces and nephews when they were learning to talk. When I was working, I could even bluffed my way through with mainland Chinese taukehs. However, 10 years of being holed up at home with only kids to talk to, I lost the flexibility or the courage to speak these two languages. The brain and tongue rusted.
Circumstances put me into people who do not speak Hokkien, Bahasa Malaysia or English. So, like it or not, I have to converse in Mandarin and Cantonese with the Perakians. And I made it! I forgot how to say cancer but I know when I heard it. Pau sien is insurance. And ‘Chuey chong yau te, xi xing li chien khang’ (most important is body is healthy). Tiok, boh?
Nun is what again?
So, these days, I listen to lots of Mandarin songs. Damn, they are so soppy, can get toothache. But Michael Wong and Nicholas Teo boleh tahan lah.
Cantonese is easier because there is Jackie Cheung and Assthrow.
Ahh…The 5xmom, multilingual, multitasking, multiblogging and multreligious….superhuman.
you so funny. you make me cry. wish my mother 5x like you. but how can, you look like my age like that..kekeke.!!
Gosh….. I’m a certified Banana… ๐
My cantonese is quite cialat, I’m supposed to know both Hokkien and Teo Chew but both also beh hiao… Don’t even get me started on Mandarin.
I can’t speak the language but I sort of catch what people are saying. Funny thing is, I know my Pin Yin pretty ok and can manage to type some stuff in Mandarin. LOL!!!
Quite cool to be multi-lingual. Your BM already so keng… Can you speak Tamil yet? ๐
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Speaking for myself, I’m of Sino-Bidayuh parentage. Dad’s Bidayuh Mom’s Hakka. For the life of me, I can’t even speak Bidayuh if my life depended on it. Hakka – quite shallow, same goes for Cantonese; can forget about Mandarin, Hokkien – cursing ok la, the rest a bit a bit la. If I visit Penang, most probably can understand but can’t answer without sounding like Angmoh trying to speak the language. All intonation jialat.
I actually picked up Cantonese by watching all those TVB serials way back then. According to my relatives, I used to speak Mandarin when I was 5-7 then dunno why forget dy.
The thing about being Malaysian is that most of us can speak a hodge-podge of languages within one sentence. Only a selected elite few can splash flowery curses with these hodge-podge of sentences with finesse. ๐
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“Chuey chong yau te, xi xing li chien khangโ (most important is body is healthy).” that’s almost correct
“Chuey chong yao te, shi shen ti chien khang”. Shen Ti is body.
faith = xin xing ??
I have faith – wo yo xin xing ????
Believe = siang xin ??
I believe you will definitely recover = wo siang xin ni yi ding hui kang fu ?????????
Cancer = ai zheng ?? (ai = cancer, zheng = sickness)
Breast cancer = ru ai ; brain cancer = nao ai
Thank God = gan xie shen ???
Lilian, sorry for the question marks.. it was because i wrote chinese character and it turns out to be question marks in ur blog.
wa! u aiming for the Guinness book of world records ?
u not so geng, what geng is when i c ang mor speaks perfect mandarin!
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xin xing = confidence, should pronounce as “xin xin”, pls refer to link: http://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=%E4%BF%A1%E5%BF%83
nun = xiu nv, pls refer to link: http://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=%E4%BF%AE%E5%A5%B3
pronunciation is oso provided there. u can check both chinese -> english & english -> chinese words.
hope it would help. cheers.
JT – Got one angmoh can sing Teresa Teng’s song even….
GG – thanks a lot for the right words. LOL, I tembak wrong lah?
Gerald – How can you ‘lose your tongue’ lah. I forget to say I can speak a little Hakka too.
Angie – Wuah, you speak so little languages ah?
jeff – Wuah, I am ONLY 43 wor….
faith is ?? xin yang =D
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fWah! RESPECT!
My mandarin enuff to survive only. Only can go order food. Hahahaha…. Same goes to my Hokkien.
Cantonese better abit.
Way to go 5xmom!
iam multilingual if anyone want to contact me send me a message to my mail,iam latinoamerican but with a great cultural level!!