Fayin Mess Ups: Buying Babies and Laying Eggs
You know that feeling when you say something and as soon as it leaves your mouth, you pause thinking, “wait, that didn’t sound right..” ?
You get the feeling that it was wrong because the other person’s response is silence, a confused look or laughter.
Well, recently I had a few very funny and awkward moments with my Chinese where it happened while I chatting on QQ with a friend. It was similar to our older fayin mess up posts where sleeping was confused for dumplings and sugar was confused for soup.
1. Are you seriously asking me how many babies I want to buy?!
We all hear China’s economy is booming. The Chinese consumer market is only going up and all companies are rushing to get in on a slice of that pie.
My cousin was asking me to help her buy a few items since the taxes in China on brand named items are crazy. She selected the things she wanted to buy and told me “我选好东西了。”
Checking the shopping bag, I just wanted to confirm before placing the order.. “你总共想买五个宝宝对吗?” She sent an emoji that was laughing and I reread what I wrote.
YIKES!! I just asked her if she wanted to buy five babies.
Quickly correcting myself I retyped: “你总共想买五个包包对吗?” Probably should be casually talking about buying 5 kids like buying material items.
宝宝 (bǎo bǎo): baby VS 包包 (bāo bāo): bag
“我选好东西了” (wǒ xuǎn hǎo dōng xi le): I finished picking.
“你总共想买五个宝宝对吗?” (nǐ zǒng gòng xiǎng mǎi wǔ gè bǎo bǎo duì ma): You want to buy a total of five babies, right?
“你总共想买五个包包对吗?” (nǐ zǒng gòng xiǎng mǎi wǔ gè bāo bāo duì ma): You want to buy a total of five bags right?
2. Have you laid the eggs yet?
Continuing with the purchase, my cousin asked “下单了吗?” to see if I had ordered. Replying to her quickly, I said “对,下蛋了”
Awkward. I realized this mistake as soon as I sent it. A picture of cartoon chickens laying eggs came into my head and I didn’t mean to say laying eggs. Correcting myself again, I told her “啊呀!下单了.”
下蛋 (xià dàn): laying eggs VS 下单 (xià dān): order
“下单了吗?” (xià dān le ma): Did you order?
“对,下蛋了.” ( xià dàn le): Yes, laid eggs.
“啊呀!下单了.” (duì, xià dānle): Ah! ordered.
So, with the right pronunciation and checking before you you send messages with words that have the same pinyin letters, you can avoid buying babies or saying eggs are laid haha. Please feel free to share any other good ones you’ve had below!
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About Christina
An ABC from New York and living in China on a mission to find some real pizza in the far east. No, Pizza Hut doesn't count.Subscribe
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3 Responses to Fayin Mess Ups: Buying Babies and Laying Eggs
I do think that tones are extremely important, but not really for the reason mentioned here. I think most people will be able to guess perfectly well what you mean simply because the alternatives are too strange. No-one will here 下單 as下蛋 simply because they can me 100% sure that the speaker didn’t intend to say “lay eggs” in this context. In case anyone is interested, I wrote much more about this here: www.hackingchinese.com/?p=1959.
Instead, tones become more important the less likely the listener is to guess what the speaker is going to say before s/he has said it. Since it’s hard to change problems with tones later, I still think it’s essential to be strict with tones from the very start, so what I’m saying here is in no way an endorsement of not caring about tones. The opposite, in fact, but I think that the practical experience of most learners is that they can get away with pretty bad tones as long as the context is clear. This doesn’t mean tones aren’t important, nothing could be further from the truth.
Completely agree with you about how important tones can be and that it’s essential to get them right from the beginning.
I’ve had tone issues while trying to express that I’m trying to learn Mandarin, 汉语,han4 yu3, but instead I ended up saying Korean, 韩语,han2 yu3. I did not even realize what I had said until my conversation partner switched over to English to ask if I really had meant to say that I was studying Korean. I got even further confused, which led me to even worse tone control and even more confusion, head scratching and laughter. I can innocently and with perfect diction and tonality say the most horrible things imaginable. I think it’s really a gift, but a very strange one. We never know where any given conversation is going to go at any given moment.
What is even better now is that I am studying Cantonese, 广东话。Even more tones to mess up with, with yet more opportunities for saying the wrongest things possible.
I just love learning new languages. I think of it as an excuse for getting away with saying the most offensive things and still appearing benign. For someone with absolutely no discernable virtues such as myself, it is a welcome respite from the normal and appropriate condemnation I usually receive from all quarters.