Random thoughts on Chinese and languages

While studying Spanish, I was always amused by the use of borrowed English words, or Spanish-afied English words.  It was usually technological words, like fax, mp3, computer (computadora), Xerox, etc.  Today I learned a fun example of a fun borrowed English word used by Chinese people.  First of all, to ask how someone is, you say, “Ni hao le ma?” (which more directly translates to, “Are you good?”). Today I learned that Chinese people will often also say, “Ni okay le ma?” 

I love it. That’s totally going to be added to the list of my most commonly used Chinese words (others include, xie xie/ thank you, dui bu qi/ excuse me or sorry, ni hao/ hello, zai jian/ goodbye, etc.)

Another thing that’s interesting is that one way of forming a question is by simply adding “ma” to the end of a statement.  So to change, “You like eating” (“Ni xihuan chi fan”) to a question you would simply say, “Ni xihuan chi fan ma”?  It has gotten to the point where if I am asking a someone a question in English (a non “wh” question- who, what, where, etc.), I will sometimes add “ma” to the end of a statement without intending to (and sometimes just for fun).  You are going home, ma?  You are full, ma?  Etc.

Another thing is that because of my limited Chinese ability, and especially my inability to understand what I hear (my ting bu dong, if you recall what I mentioned in a previous post), often I will interject a random sentence into my host parents’ conversations.  I can’t tell when they finish discussing a topic so I just jump whenever there’s a pause.  Tonight at dinner they were talking about something and out of nowhere I held out my wrist to my host mom to show her the bracelet I was wearing and explain that I bought it yesterday at Jin Li Road (an ancient road that is now a tourist site with a lot of shops).  She said something in response and then returned to talking to my host dad in Chinese, and I realized I must sound pretty silly to them sometimes.  I’m just taking any opportunity to practice so I search my brain for random things that I know how to talk about, and spit out a sentence just for the pride of having said a sentence correctly in Chinese.  I find it rather amusing.

You find it amusing, ma?