Thursday, July 24, 2008

So Chinese sounds like that to Koreans, too!

The funniest thing happened today in one of my classes.  (I was observing it; I'll be taking over in a couple weeks.)  Diana Teacher, one of the fabulous Korean teachers, was leading a discussion that involved subjects in school.  One of the kids mentioned taking Chinese, and another kid started imitating a person speaking Chinese.  He was all "ching cha ya chong" in a nasal, sing-songy voice--basically, he sounded exactly like an American imitating Chinese might sound.

I had to force myself not to laugh out loud.  To me, Korean and Chinese don't sound all that different; Korean sounds a bit "ching cha ya chong" to my ears, even as I'm getting more accustomed to it.  I wanted to go "uh, Charlie, you say that jokingly, buuuuut.....that's kind of what you sound like when you speak Korean," but I don't think that would have gone over so well.   :c)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Korean sounds more aggressive coming from boys than from girls. We girls speak softly and beautifully. =P

Lori said...

Actually, it's funny you say that! I've noticed how pretty Korean sounds from women, especially women announcers--like the voice in my elevator that announces the floor, for example. It's quite lovely!