Jump to content
UnevenEdge
This Folder has been Archived!

Question to the Asians and/or weebs of this board

Doom Metal Alchemist

By Doom Metal Alchemist
in Free-For-All

 Share

Recommended Posts

Doom Metal Alchemist Monster Mutant

Doom Metal Alchemist

Posted
Posted

@bnmjy you self describe as both, so this is especially to you.

So A Christmas Story is now playing for a 24 hour loop on TBS. There is that one scene in the Chinese restaurant with the workers singing "Deck the harrs with barrs of horry, fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra..."

So my question is: How accurate is this stereotype to CHINESE people specifically? I remember on the old boards many years ago someone said this tends to happen with people from Japan because they don't have the L sound in their language. I am by no means an expert on Japan or its language, but of all the Japanese names I've seen and heard in anime, video games, video game end credits, and Japanese metal bands seems to corroborate this.

But this stereotype is commonly applied to Chinese people too. But I am wondering if that is even accurate. The Chinese have many names with the L in it, such as Ling, Lee, and Liu. Why would they have trouble with that sound? Is it just the old "all Asians are the same" racism? Or is there something I'm not understanding here?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bnmjy Monster Mutant

bnmjy

Posted
Posted

I don't know much about Chinese, so I can't say, but Japanese has no L sound. The Japanese R isn't like the English R though. It's more like a mixture of an English R and L. Native Japanese speakers have difficulty distinguishing between the two audibly, although it is possible for them to produce the sounds verbally.

The English R is highly unusual anyway. Compare it to other European languages, where they either trill their Rs (Spanish) or produce it in the back of their throats (German).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doom Metal Alchemist Monster Mutant

Doom Metal Alchemist

Posted
  • Author
Posted
1 hour ago, bnmjy said:

I don't know much about Chinese, so I can't say, but Japanese has no L sound. The Japanese R isn't like the English R though. It's more like a mixture of an English R and L. Native Japanese speakers have difficulty distinguishing between the two audibly, although it is possible for them to produce the sounds verbally.

The English R is highly unusual anyway. Compare it to other European languages, where they either trill their Rs (Spanish) or produce it in the back of their throats (German).

American-English R's are even quite different from British-English R's. From what I can tell British-English R's are more similar to German R's than American R's. We Americans are like the only ones who would say an ending r with that rrrrrrrrrrrr rather than a kind of -ah or -uh kind of thing.

British person talking about 70s hard rock: "You know who was a great guitah playuh? Michael Schenkuh."

German person: "You know who was a great guitah playah? Michael Schenkeh."

American person: "You know who was a great guitarrrrrrrrrr playerrrrrrrrrr? Michael Schenkerrrrrrrrrrrrr." xD

Link to comment
Share on other sites
bnmjy Monster Mutant

bnmjy

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, Doom Metal Alchemist said:

American-English R's are even quite different from British-English R's. From what I can tell British-English R's are more similar to German R's than American R's. We Americans are like the only ones who would say an ending r with that rrrrrrrrrrrr rather than a kind of -ah or -uh kind of thing.

British person talking about 70s hard rock: "You know who was a great guitah playuh? Michael Schenkuh."

German person: "You know who was a great guitah playah? Michael Schenkeh."

American person: "You know who was a great guitarrrrrrrrrr playerrrrrrrrrr? Michael Schenkerrrrrrrrrrrrr." xD

Not quite. There is more than one British accent. Pronouncing the R at the end of a word is called rhoticity. Most British accents are non-rhotic, although there are some well-known rhotic ones such as Scottish, Welsh, and Irish. Most non-native speakers of English have a non-rhotic accent. It's just really hard to master that R. It's normally just replaced in a similar sound combination in their native tongues.

I wasn't referring to rhoticity anyway. As a test, say "rare." Notice the positioning of your tongue. It curls and almost touches the top of your mouth. The German R is produced from the uvula, that thing that hangs in the back of your mouth.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
PhilosipherStoned Monster Mutant

PhilosipherStoned

Posted
Posted

Honestly that specific stereotype does seem to make more since with the japanese language, but it happens with chinese as well, I don;t know anything about the chinese language, but I've met enough foriegn exchange students, and immigrants to know it happens to chinese people to.. It even seems to be harder for chinese people to get passed that. Not sure why. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Xanatos Aristocrat

Xanatos

Posted
Posted (edited)

1. It's inaccurate as hell. Chinese people are taught English from a very young age and are criticized heavily if they don't get it right or dam near close.

Good rule of thumb..if their over 50 they don't know a word of English n won't learn and probably hate your laowhy ass. If there 30-50 they understand enough but aren't fluent. Under 30. They probably speak better English then you. They don't like to speak it to laowhy cause they have confidence problems and are afraid to get it wrong.

 

2. The sterotype lives on cause they don't know about it ( great firewall of China and all) and if they did they don't care...they give no fucks about pc shit n are openly racist.

 

Source..not a weeb ...lived in China and moving back again soon.

Edited by Xanatos
  • Like 2
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
KreiaDidNothingWrong Elder

KreiaDidNothingWrong

Posted
Posted

I can’t think of many words in Mandarin that have an L sound off the top of my head and idk about Cantonese or other spoken languages. There isn’t really one singular language outside of written. Still, it doesn’t seem to be an issue when I have Cantonese or Mandarin speaking customers so I don’t believe the stereotype. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
PhilosipherStoned Monster Mutant

PhilosipherStoned

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Xanatos said:

1. It's inaccurate as hell. Chinese people are taught English from a very young age and are criticized heavily if they don't get it right or dam near close.

Good rule of thumb..if their over 50 they don't know a word of English n won't learn and probably hate your laowhy ass. If there 30-50 they understand enough but aren't fluent. Under 30. They probably speak better English then you. They don't like to speak it to laowhy cause they have confidence problems and are afraid to get it wrong.

 

2. The sterotype lives on cause they don't know about it ( great firewall of China and all) and if they did they don't care...they give no fucks about pc shit n are openly racist.

 

Source..not a weeb ...lived in China and moving back again soon.

Must be a big city or well established economic area.. China has about as many slums, suburbs, and rural areas as the states, and more than a handful of folks from those areas end up in the states as well. More often than not a chinese immogrant will know the ends and outs of the english language, and can write and type easily.. It's just some dialects of chinese are so fucked it makes the people that learn them as a child cringe hard enough when traveling, let alone them speaking in english.. so they barely even try to speak english..

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Xanatos Aristocrat

Xanatos

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, PhilosipherStoned said:

Must be a big city or well established economic area.. China has about as many slums, suburbs, and rural areas as the states, and more than a handful of folks from those areas end up in the states as well. More often than not a chinese immogrant will know the ends and outs of the english language, and can write and type easily.. It's just some dialects of chinese are so fucked it makes the people that learn them as a child cringe hard enough when traveling, let alone them speaking in english.. so they barely even try to speak english..

Unless ur in butt fuck nowhere China they speak English...u can be dam sure anyone 20 or under does.

 

I lived in Beijing so yes teir 1 city but I went all over to many teir 2 n 3 city's. Only place I ever saw their English wasn't good was an old fishing village of about 2,000 people...and they were one of the so behind the times places a laowhy still can't get a hotel room in the area.

 

Edit. Laowhy is what they call a foreigner or outsider...it's what you will be called on a regular basis in China...sorry using it's a habit.

Edited by Xanatos
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Doom Metal Alchemist Monster Mutant

Doom Metal Alchemist

Posted
  • Author
Posted
17 hours ago, Xanatos said:

1. It's inaccurate as hell. Chinese people are taught English from a very young age and are criticized heavily if they don't get it right or dam near close.

Good rule of thumb..if their over 50 they don't know a word of English n won't learn and probably hate your laowhy ass. If there 30-50 they understand enough but aren't fluent. Under 30. They probably speak better English then you. They don't like to speak it to laowhy cause they have confidence problems and are afraid to get it wrong.

 

2. The sterotype lives on cause they don't know about it ( great firewall of China and all) and if they did they don't care...they give no fucks about pc shit n are openly racist.

 

Source..not a weeb ...lived in China and moving back again soon.

The thing about your point number one is that the stereotype is probably as old as when the Chinese first immigrated to this country which was what, like 100 years ago? The accuracy of the stereotype in the past to what it is/was when you lived there may be vastly different. Just for the fact that the stereotype was so prevalent, that maybe culturally they did everything they could to dispel it.

But thank you for the info. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...