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Looking for revenge for Chinese tones? Try onomatopoeia

By Ben Johnson (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-10 11:22

When they repeated "b'gerk' too flatly, my advice - to pronounce the second syllable using Mandarin's first and highest tone - worked a treat and the school soon sounded like a fox in a hen house.

Naturally a rooster's "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" followed suit - much to the dismay of my protgs, for whom "zhi zhi zha zha," had always been the sound of the bird shaped like their own country.

Now all and sundry were eagerly anticipating which member of the animal kingdom their crazy Australian would imitate next, as my teaching debut morphed into what Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons would surely "declare Onomatopoeia Day".

Again all were agog, and some in fits of laughter, to learn Westerners used "woof woof" for a dog's "wang wang". "Wang wang?" I asked, silently incredulous.

And a few sparse eyebrows were raised at the news "a-choo" was actually how those silly foreigners mimicked a sneeze - not "a-ti" - and that a "dong" (first tone) at the door was actually a knock.

Continuing the hilarity, "gua gua" (fourth tone) gave way to "ribbit" as we impersonated a frog together, just as "ba-a-ah, ba-a-ah" replaced "mie" as the din of a sheep flock.

As "quack quack" flew south from my mouth to their developing minds, "ga ga" (first tone) passed for a duck to my growing ear for Chinese.

The humor the youngsters found in these examples came as a pleasant surprise to a complete novice of a teacher, as did their ability to pronounce difficult words correctly.

Although a lumberjack's productivity was out of reach, in just one attempt they had mastered the word "usually", a word even the most fluent Chinese English speakers make a hash of. "Ewerully" has indeed provided me a chuckle or two over the past two years.

But I've never laughed as hard as those kids when they first heard a waiguoren playing chicken.

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