kaigou: this is what I do, darling (4 oh em gee)
[personal profile] kaigou
(If only there were a way to slow down the audio and still have it comprehensible. I could use that.)

When a Mandarin-speaker answers the phone, the greeting sounds like wei. Okay. (Not that we were taught that, either, but some things I did pick up from friends.) A number of times in the Taiwanese dramas, a character will greet another, or respond, in a way that sounds a lot like the different ways an English-speaker would say, "hey" -- and it has the same sound as the phone-greeting wei. So, someone's down on themselves, and the friend says, wei, to get their attention, and then, a quick-cajoling wei, wei, wei the same way I might say "hey, hey [stop that]" in English. Unfortunately, the subtitles never show this mid-conversation, non-phone-use wei as a character on the screen.

Is this the same hanzi, or just one that sounds a lot like the phone-greeting? (Or alternately, one that only sounds similar if it's a Taiwanese accent?)

many thanks in advance for helping me out of the bafflement.

Date: 16 Dec 2010 04:37 pm (UTC)
tesserae: white poppies in the sun (Default)
From: [personal profile] tesserae
I threw the question over to a former student who's from Taiwan; I'll let you know what she says...

Date: 16 Dec 2010 08:03 pm (UTC)
tesserae: white poppies in the sun (Default)
From: [personal profile] tesserae
Former student sez: "This is quite an interesting question. I have never think about it this way before when i speak! ^^

Your friend got it all correct the ways we use wei!
Wei is indeed the "Hello" when we pick up the phone, and also used like "hey" in English. And when it used three times in a quick-cajoling wei, wei, wei is the same as hey, hey, hey to get someones attention. And it acts just like interjection in English, and use the same Chinese character 喂 in all situation. We don't normally have it in formal written Chinese but might be able to see it in novels or informal written works.

I don't know much about Chinese Mandarin in mainland China, but I don't think it is the Taiwanese accent. Although, Taiwanese do tend to use a lot of expletive words at the end of a sentence, more so than Chinese Mandarin speakers I have noticed. It is quite often that a few words sound will be left out from the subtitles because it doesn't really help in the sentence structure but simply used as the utterance of a word or phrase that express some kind of emotion into it, depends on the tone used."

Hope this is helpful!


Date: 21 Dec 2010 02:19 am (UTC)
margrave: (Default)
From: [personal profile] margrave
Hey! Hope you don't mind me butting in, was going through friends reading list and stumbled upon your account, and your adventures in language is absolutely fascinating.

Your question regarding ‘wei’ is really interesting and it is something I have never thought of in detail. I had to call up my dad to confirm the usage of ‘wei’ PRC (I trust his complete PRC education life as opposed to my cheese grater PRC education). From a PRC point of view the only time I use 'wei' is when I'm answering the phone, and when I want to get somebody's attention. It is like going, 'Hey! Over here!' type of thing (and only if I know them well, because it is a bit rude to go, 'wei') and I would use it very sparingly. In short, no, it isn't common in PRC day-to-day usage beyond answering the phone.

In regards to subtitles - surprisingly there is rarely any adjustments to them when shown in PRC. The additional words at the end of sentences (or lack of) for Taiwanese speakers don’t make much of ping on most PRC natives’ radar. I was talking to dad about this and he was completely nonplussed about the whole thing because it was like, ‘why would it matter?’ with or without the subtitles it would still mean the same thing. It was -, um, an interesting conversation on the great divide between native speakers and people who have to learn it from scratch. Which I suppose really doesn’t answer your question about the pronunciation of ‘le’. The other thing I was reminded by dad was the fact that the subtitles could have been taken directly from the script, and the dialogue would be what the actors decided would be most suitable for the scene/character.

Also, I’m not sure about Taiwanese television networks, but ALL shows, whether, reality tv, game shows, news, dramas, etc., they are all subtitled in PRC. I mean every, single show on ever single PRC network. I’m pretty sure the Chinese New Year Celebration gets subtitled too (the thing is, it is so PREVALENT and always there that after while you stop noticing).

Taiwanese Mandarin pronunciation makes my ears tired because it always sounds as if they are slurring and not pronouncing words clearly. It takes me at least 10 mins before my ears adjust to Taiwanese pronunciation and even then there will be times when certain actors just make it unbearably difficult to understand.

So, um, I hope that helped.

Date: 22 Dec 2010 03:32 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Sorry for butting in, especially as it seems you already have a Taiwanese and a PRC contributing to this conversation. I just wanted to add that for me (I'm a native Chinese speaker as well), though the same hanzi is used, I would never pronounce the word the same way in both cases. In answering the phone, I'd use second tone, whereas if I'm getting someone's attention, I'd use fourth tone. It's not interchangeable, for me. I don't know if that's the experience for anyone else, but I would expect it to be so...?

whois

kaigou: this is what I do, darling (Default)
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