{"id":1291,"date":"2012-05-26T22:53:56","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T14:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/akikolingoland.com\/?p=1291"},"modified":"2015-05-21T21:23:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T13:23:59","slug":"of-tunes-and-flowers-tongue-twister-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akikolingoland.com\/en\/of-tunes-and-flowers-tongue-twister-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Tunes And Flowers – Tongue Twister (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

How did you find the tongue twister<\/a> the last time? The pronunciation might have been a little hard, but the meaning was pretty straight forward, wasn’t it?<\/p>\n

Now here’s one that’s a little more challenging.<\/p>\n

\u8c03\u7434\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u6765\u8c03\u8c03\u5999
\n\u79cd\u82b1\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u6210\u79cd\u79cd\u9999<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nope, there’s no typo here. This is a play on the Chinese characters.<\/p>\n

On most occasions, for a Chinese character, there is one corresponding pronunciation. But sometimes there are two, or even more. This phenomenon of \u201c\u5b57\u540c\u97f3\u5f02\u201d\uff08z\u00ec t\u00f3ng y\u012bn y\u00ec, a character having various pronunciations and meanings) does pose a challenge for foreign learners, but it is great fun for Chinese scholars, who have much relish for using such characters in writing witty and profound couplets and poems.<\/p>\n

In order to tackle this riddle-like couplet (\u5bf9\u8054 du\u00ec li\u00e1n), apart from understanding the characters themselves, we also have to know where the appropriate pauses are.<\/p>\n

Let’s now insert the pinyin and commas, and have a listen to the recording.<\/p>\n

ti\u00e1o q\u00edn di\u00e0o di\u00e0o ti\u00e1o, di\u00e0o di\u00e0o ti\u00e1o l\u00e1i di\u00e0o di\u00e0o mi\u00e0o<\/strong>
\n \u8c03 \u7434 \u8c03 \u8c03 \u8c03\uff0c \u8c03 \u8c03 \u8c03 \u6765 \u8c03 \u8c03 \u5999<\/strong><\/p>\n

zh\u00f2ng hu\u0101 zh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng zh\u00f2ng, zh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng zh\u00f2ng ch\u00e9ng zh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng xi\u0101ng<\/strong>
\n \u79cd \u82b1 \u79cd \u79cd \u79cd\uff0c \u79cd \u79cd \u79cd \u6210 \u79cd \u79cd \u9999<\/strong><\/p>\n

Slow version:
\ntiao qin zhong hua slow<\/a><\/p>\n

Normal version:
\ntiao qin zhong hua medium<\/a><\/p>\n

Crazy version:
\ntiao qin zhong hua fast<\/a><\/p>\n

Let’s first look at the character “\u8c03”, which has two pronunciations “ti\u00e1o” and “di\u00e0o”. If we zoom in to details actually there are quite a few meanings to each of them, but here they each mean:
\n“ti\u00e1o”: (v) to harmonize, to play
\n“di\u00e0o”: (n) tune<\/p>\n

Next we’ll look at “\u79cd”, which has three pronunciations – “zh\u00f2ng”, “zh\u01d2ng” and “Ch\u00f3ng”. Only “zh\u00f2ng” and “zh\u01d2ng” are used here. (“Ch\u00f3ng” is a surname.)<\/p>\n

“zh\u00f2ng”: (v) to plant
\n“zh\u01d2ng”: (n) seed; kind, type<\/p>\n

And now the rest of the characters, which are less threatening!<\/p>\n

q\u00edn
\n\u7434 – (n) musical instrument
\nl\u00e1i
\n\u6765 – (aux) a filler for songs and poems
\nmi\u00e0o
\n\u5999 – (adj) wonderful
\nhu\u0101
\n\u82b1 – (n) flower
\nch\u00e9ng
\n\u6210 – (v) to become
\nxi\u0101ng
\n\u9999 – (adj) fragrant<\/p>\n

Ok, so let’s jump in and try to look at the whole picture.<\/p>\n

ti\u00e1o q\u00edn
\n\u8c03\u7434 – to play an instrument
\ndi\u00e0o di\u00e0o ti\u00e1o
\n\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03* – to play all kinds of tunes
\ndi\u00e0o di\u00e0o
\n\u8c03\u8c03 – all the tunes
\nti\u00e1o l\u00e1i
\n\u8c03\u6765** – being played
\ndi\u00e0o di\u00e0o mi\u00e0o
\n\u8c03\u8c03\u5999 – all the tunes are wonderful<\/p>\n

zh\u00f2ng hu\u0101
\n\u79cd\u82b1 – to grow flowers
\nzh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng zh\u00f2ng
\n\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd* – to grow all kinds of flowers
\nzh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng
\n\u79cd\u79cd – all the flowers
\nzh\u00f2ng ch\u00e9ng
\n\u79cd\u6210 – grow and blossom
\nzh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng xi\u0101ng
\n\u79cd\u79cd\u9999 – all the flowers are fragrant<\/p>\n

So when put together, translated liberally, this couplet basically means<\/p>\n

Every tune played is wonderful<\/em>
\n Every flower planted is fragran<\/em>t<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong>
\n* When a noun or a measure word is duplicated, the double character expression means ‘everything’. So here, “\u8c03\u8c03” (di\u00e0o di\u00e0o) means ‘all the tunes’, while “\u79cd\u79cd” (zh\u01d2ng zh\u01d2ng) means ‘all kinds of flowers\/ all the flowers’.
\n** Here, ‘\u6765’ does not mean ‘to come’. It is an auxiliary word used as a filler for songs and poems.<\/p>\n

Phew, that was quite a mouthful and definitely not quite easy to understand huh? Well, Chinese is a totally different language from English, it’s going to take a lot of getting used to. Not to worry though, this is not common parlance anyway! But it’s good practice for improving your pronunciation, so do try it. Get into the mood by finding a garden full of flowers and playing some beautiful background music! On a more serious tone though, when you get used to reciting rhymes and songs, you’ll be on the way to getting a good feel of the Chinese language too!<\/p>\n

Before I end off, here’s a quiz. The title of this post is “\u8c03\u8c03\u7434 \u79cd\u79cd\u82b1 \u7ec3\u7ec3\u8c03”. Care to guess how it is should be pronounced, and what it means?<\/p>\n

Be on the look out for the answer in my next post!<\/p>\n

<\/div>\nIf you’ve enjoyed this, don’t forget to hit one of the sharing buttons below, and do join me on<\/span> Google+<\/span><\/a>\/ Facebook<\/span><\/a>\/\u00a0Youtub<\/span><\/a>e\/\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\/ Pinterest<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How did you find the tongue twister the last time? The pronunciation might have been a little hard, but the meaning was pretty straight forward, wasn’t it? Now here’s one that’s a little more challenging. \u8c03\u7434\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u8c03\u6765\u8c03\u8c03\u5999 \u79cd\u82b1\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u79cd\u6210\u79cd\u79cd\u9999...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[293,97,82,101,107],"tags":[243,241,233],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-chinese-characters","category-mandarin","category-practice","category-pronunciation","tag-reduplication","tag-tongue-twisters","tag-verbs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t