Use of the Chinese language by EnterpriseX

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Use of the Chinese language

POSTED BY: ENTERPRISEX
UPDATED: Friday, December 6, 2002 17:31
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Sunday, October 6, 2002 12:15 AM

I'm a second generation Taiwanese so my Chinese speaking skills suck and my curse word knowledge is extremely limited. I could pick out a few of the phrases used on the show so far, but I'm just not getting the majority of them. Does anyone out there know if they're strickly speaking Mandarin or is some Cantonese sneaking in there like I suspect. It could also be my limited knowledge of the language or just the actors butchering the phrase (even some of the ones I have understood sounded really bad).

If nothing else, the theme song is better than the one on Enterprise :)
EnterpriseX

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 2:01 AM

DELVO

Hey, they're not butchering the language, that's how it'll be SUPPOSED to sound in 500 years!

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 2:14 AM

ENTERPRISEX

Ah, but by that logic wouldn't the English also be different?

I guess you could explain a lot of stuff with the old "that's how they do it in the future" explanation.

The fact that they tried to do away with the "everyone speaks English" conceit so often found in other Sci-Fi is commendable, but they could have gone the extra mile and made it sound convincing. Though only a small part of their audience would be able to tell the difference, to that part of the audience it's like a show about Boston where they use Brooklyn accents.

Fun, semi-related fact: Many Asian stars (like Jet Li) learn at least part of their line in American films phoenetically. I don't think it would be too hard for English speaking actors to do the reverse.

If nothing else, the theme song is better than the one on Enterprise :)
EnterpriseX

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 2:48 AM

DELVO

Hey, English (or whatever they're really speaking) changed too, but we have to have it translated so the audience can understand it...

About learning lines phoneticly, I'm sure that's what they ARE doing... but the reason accents exist is because languages don't use the same sounds and don't use them the same ways. It can't be helped. (You use Jackie Chan as an example; don't tell me HIS accent isn't really thick!)

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 3:10 AM

ENTERPRISEX

If the future English is being "translated" for the audience's sake, why wouldn't the Chinese be as well?

And yes, it would probably be too much to ask to expect the actors to be able to speak perfect Chinese. There are ways around it such as dubbing, but I really don't see the need to go to that extreme unless they decide to do larger chunks of dialogue in Chinese. I'm sure it's trivial to most fans of the show, but for people that know the language it does very mildly take me out of the show.

I wonder what the overseas version of the show will sound like

If nothing else, the theme song is better than the one on Enterprise :)
EnterpriseX

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 5:58 AM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Quote:
Originally posted by EnterpriseX:
Ah, but by that logic wouldn't the English also be different?

Yeah, but they ain't exactly speakn' the queen's English on the show, ya know?

Actually this whole conversation reminds me of a Japanese friend of mine that's just come to the States to go to college. So she's seeing Buffy for the first time in Englsih. She says it's very weird.

________________

"You still don't get it. It's not about right. It's not about wrong... It's about Power." —Morph-O-Monster, "Lessons"

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 6:50 AM

WILLIAM

From what I've heard around Firefly forums, is that the actors do have a language specialist on set to help them with the language. There's a video clip at the official site I think.

My Cantonese isn't very good, but that's because I don't speak it much, I speak English mostly. So maybe on the show, alot of the Asian community speak their language (cantonese, mandarin) alot less frequent, and over the years the language has changed a little. It's the whole USA and China joining thing. The Americans learned a Chinese language and the Chinese focused more on talking in American-English. The language is mixed into like one language kinda. Some English, some Mandarin/Cantonese

That's how I see it.

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 7:32 AM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

Quote:
Originally posted by LivingImpaired:
Yeah, but they ain't exactly speakn' the queen's English on the show, ya know?

Yeah, the thing that gets me is that they reverted back to the Old West style of English.
But I guess another era wouldn't exactly work out.

From the The Train Job:

MALCOLM: Well, whut about yo' ass, Shepherd? Y be yo' ass out in da house flyin' about wit' us robba's? Shouldn't yo' ass be off bringin' words o' da damn Lord to da damn fuzzy-wuzzies o' sump'n? True dat.

BOOK: Oh, I have some fat-ass amount o' sucka's right in da house.

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 8:29 AM

AVALON

^^^ *falls off her chair giggling*

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 8:32 AM

RINGWRAITH

LOL! Gotta love dem whack azz beyotches!

Still better than this alternative:

Mal: "So, like these two guys come in, eh, and they're like--"
Wash: "Tell 'em about the beer, eh?"
Mal: "I'll get to the beer, you hoser, just take off, eh? So anyways, like I was saying, these two guys, they're like really tough, eh, and like, one of 'em has a gun, eh--"
Wash: "And a can of beer--"
Mal: "Hey, would you just take off? Okay, so like this one guy draws a gun, eh, and it was a beauty."
Wash: "Yeah, beauty."

Okay, that's enough Canadiana for today.

************************************************
"How will this end?"
"In fire."
--Babylon 5, 'The Coming of Shadows'
************************************************

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 5:29 PM

LIDJA

I think the actors are probably trying to learn their lines phonetically and hence butchering the inflection and context. They are getting better. In Our Mrs. Reynolds it only took be a couple of viewings to realize that Mal's response to Kaylee's statement was "Mind your own business". I'm still working on what exactly Kaylee said to provoke that response in the first place. If what they are speaking is Mandarin then every sound has four to five possible inflections. Incidently the word for sky and the word for day (as in today, tomorrow, the day after) sound the same. What I find most interesting is their use of the word ain't. I may be wrong be, but outside of the Southern U.S. you rarely hear the phrase used.

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Sunday, October 6, 2002 6:35 PM

JASONZZZ

There's a *huge* problem with picking out a few "badly spoken" Chinese phrases.

The reason why the Berlitz language courses don't work for Chinese (You might as well buy flashcards, they will work better if you are traveling and need to just get by) is because many of the words sound the same - even with the correct tones apply; what's more? The tones can vary slightly within the confines of a properly pronounced statement. The real secret to converstional Chinese is the context. Without context, and with only a few words or phrases to attempt a guess at the context. It would be really difficult to figure out what the speaker is trying to convey.

Quote:
Originally posted by EnterpriseX:
I'm a second generation Taiwanese so my Chinese speaking skills suck and my curse word knowledge is extremely limited. I could pick out a few of the phrases used on the show so far, but I'm just not getting the majority of them. Does anyone out there know if they're strickly speaking Mandarin or is some Cantonese sneaking in there like I suspect. It could also be my limited knowledge of the language or just the actors butchering the phrase (even some of the ones I have understood sounded really bad).

If nothing else, the theme song is better than the one on Enterprise :)
EnterpriseX

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Monday, October 7, 2002 8:14 AM

ELIZABETH

ah, but one of the things i like best about the writing on firefly, is that the language *has* changed -- it's not just recycled ye olde westy american english. i especially like all joss's little tricks for getting stuff past the censors -- 'ruttin' is clearly a replacement for 'fuckin', and 'gorramn' for 'goddamn', and both are used with liberal abandon. there's also lots and lots of little instances (which, of course, i can't think of now) where sentence structure does this cute little skip and kick, just enough for you to know that this language is as understandable and yet strange to us as 'wilt thou' and 'howsoever', from 500 years back. for some reason, the prepositional deliciousness of mal's 'what happened about me?' after saffron doped him just had me rolling.

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Monday, October 7, 2002 8:39 AM

ZICSOFT

Quote:
Originally posted by EnterpriseX:

Fun, semi-related fact: Many Asian stars (like Jet Li) learn at least part of their line in American films phoenetically. I don't think it would be too hard for English speaking actors to do the reverse.

My favorite example of this is Yôko Shimada, who managed to play the female lead in an American mini-series (Shogun) with no knowledge of English at all. Her memory must be something else!

JOSS, WHERE'S MY CHECK???!!!

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Monday, October 7, 2002 7:39 PM

EISENHAUER

Firefly's use of Chinese actually reminds me of the Japanese anime "Outlaw Stars" and Amy Wong of Mars in Futurama.

The former was about pirates and outlaws in the space frontier, and incidentally the show also started off with a girl in a box...

Anyway, I think it's really cool that the characters on the show use their innate human ability to process different languages seamlessly rather depending on some mechanical gizmo.

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Friday, December 6, 2002 5:25 PM

SHALAMAR

Ok can someone please explain to me what language do the people actually use on firefly?? cuz i really want to know what they r saying!! Ok thanks.

Shal

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Friday, December 6, 2002 5:31 PM

SOLETA

Quote:
Originally posted by Haken:
From the The Train Job:

MALCOLM: Well, whut about yo' ass, Shepherd? Y be yo' ass out in da house flyin' about wit' us robba's? Shouldn't yo' ass be off bringin' words o' da damn Lord to da damn fuzzy-wuzzies o' sump'n? True dat.

BOOK: Oh, I have some fat-ass amount o' sucka's right in da house.

*hysterics*

Someone's GOT to get that to Joss and the Firefly crew. STAT!

- soleta

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