Sunday 15 August 2010

Chinese is broad and profound, just do as the Romans do. 華語博大精深,入鄉隨俗就好。

Time flies and I have been living in Taiwan for 4 years. Since Chinese Language (Mandarin) is widely used in Taipei as the medium of daily communication, my Chinese proficiency has improved a lot compared to 4 years ago. I can speak fluently without mixing with other languages or dialects and with proper sentence structure. In the begining, i found that people here speaks differently from us, albeit the usage of Traditional Chinese characters versus Simplified Chinese characters and different accents, the pronunciation or tones over some Chinese characters are a bit different from what i learnt in my home country.
Let me summarise some of the major differences on the pronunciation below:
在台灣生活了一段時間,轉眼已經快進入第五年了。由於在這裡的衣食住行都離不開中文,所以我的中文進步了,現在的我跟當初的我比起來,的確是改變很多。應該說講話比以前流利了,可以完整以中文來表達,不需要加入其它語言或方言了,且會開始注意句子結構。
剛開始,會覺得臺灣人說的中文或華語,怎麼有點不一樣... 這不是繁體字與簡體字的差異或者口音的問題,而是有些字的發音,跟以前老師教的不一樣...
以下讓我來舉例一些最常遇到的差異:

角 角色 → 我們念"絕",不念"腳",角度如三角形等,則念"腳"
和 我和你 → 這裡念我"汗"你, 而我們是念我"河"你
亞 馬來西亞 東南亞 亞洲 → 這裡是念"雅",我們念"訝"
微 微笑、微小、微波爐 → 這裡念"唯",我們是念"威"
艘 一艘船 → 這裡是念"騷",我們念"收"
淑 淑女 → 這裡是念"贖",我們念"書"
廈 高樓大廈 → 這裡念"夏",我們念"煞"
攜 攜帶 → 這裡是念"西",我們則念"協"
企 企業、企鵝、企圖 → 這裡人念"器",我們念"起"
錫 錫米 → 這裡是念"席",我們則念"西"
什 什麼 → 這裡是念"蛇",我們則念"神"
法 法國 → 這裡是念第四聲,我們念第二聲,方法的"法"皆念第二聲
酪 乳酪 → "lao"(ㄌㄠ)跟"luo"(ㄉㄨㄛ), 皆念第四聲
垃圾 → "勒色"跟"拉雞"

Well, that's all i can recall so far.
嗯,目前只想到這麼多。

Living in Malaysia, besides mastering the major three languages, sometimes we need to communicate with Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, Fuchou, Hainan and etc (I am not that great to know all of them..., normally simple Mandarin, Cantonese or Hokkein is sufficient), hence most of the speeches of Chinese descendants in Malaysia are mixed with various dialects and languages for effective communication and expression, and all of us are used to that. We watch a lot of TV programmes from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan everyday exposing to different types of languages among the regions, so we might mix-up with the pronunciation of some Chinese characters as they are different from what we known and used daily. However, we might be pronouncing these characters wrong all the way since we were young. To be frank, i learnt a lot of new Chinese characters through watching the drama series from Hong Kong, so sometimes i only know how to read the characters in Cantonese instead of Mandarin... Ops...
To make a long story short, so if you ever got the chance to visit Taiwan of Mainland China and the local peoples there could not understand what you said or correct your pronunciation over certain characters, try not to deny yourself at the beginning, this could be due to the differences across the straits and there is no right or wrong. My suggestion is, when in Rome, do as the Romans do!
Next time i will talk about different names given on the same object.
在馬來西亞生活,除了要掌握三種語言,說話時也許還需要加入一些華人的方言,如福建、廣東、潮州、客家、福州和海南等(我沒那麼厲害全部都會啦..,一般上用華語,廣東話或福建話就可以溝通了)來強化溝通和表達,所以造成大馬華裔說的中文像個大雜燴,雖然一句話當中可能會參插了一些來自不同語言或方言,不過大部分的人都聽得懂。在日常生活中,看很多中港臺的電視節目和電影,對於不同的中文發音可能會感到混淆,好像跟日常生活所用的不一樣,不過,這當然也有可能我們自己從小到大都念錯某些字... 老實說,很多中文字詞的用法,我是看港劇學的,所以有時候知道廣東發音,卻不知道其中文的發音...哈哈!
長話短說吧~
所以,如果以後你們有機會去臺灣或中國,當地人聽不懂或糾正你的發音時,先別否定自己的中文程度,因為這只是兩岸的差異所造成的,並沒有對與錯。個人建議,入鄉隨俗就好!
下次再談談不同名詞的用法,就是相同的東西,名稱卻不一樣。