Mandarin

[dexeded]

So, I just watched the first two-parter episode of Firefly called Serenity, and then searched online to see why they were all speaking Mandarin. And found out that the Alliance was made up of the US and China (or something like that), so the culture is a mishmash of both. Anyway, I speak Mandarin Chinese as my second language, and happily mocked their terrible pronunciation (silly Westerners!). But I was wondering what those of you who don't speak Chinese here think of how they speak the language. Do you think it sounds odd? Or impressive? Trying too hard?

 

[arabella]

To be perfectly honest, since I speak absolutely NO Mandarin Chinese, they could've said anything they wanted and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference to me. I only knew they'd pronounced things badly from reading about it before watching the show/movie...otherwise I'm certain I wouldn't have even known that.

 

[BuffyElevated]

Well the first time I watched the show, I thought it was really weird and stupid sounding. LOL I missed the part about how the cultures were meshed together, so I was like "What the hell did he just say?"
But honestly, after I got used to it, it just became a fun part of the show. 🙂

 

[Taake]

I've always thought that it sounds like Westerners trying to speak mandarin (which I always thought was the point too 🙂) but I compare to hearing my grandmother and her friends speak mandarin chinese (which they all do fluently as most of them are Chinese) so judging by that I hear big differences in pronounciation even if I don't speak it myself.

 

[dexeded]

So you guys can tell that their pronunciation is off? It's mainly because Mandarin Chinese actually has four 'tones'. So if you say 'ya', you can say it as a straight tone, like the same pitch; sliding up in pitch; plunging down in pitch; and sliding down then a little up in pitch. Yeah... I can't really explain it in words, but it's not as complicated as it sounds. So when Westerners say 'ya', they just do it anyhow, because English doesn't have those nuances. (Mandarin Chinese is hardly the worst, though; I think the Hokkien dialect has like sixteen 'tones'.)

 

[arabella]

I wouldn't say I could tell it was off as much as I would say it sounded strange to me, but correctly pronounced Mandarin sounds odd to me as well since I have almost zero exposure. I mean, I'm certain that anyone with any familiarity with Mandarin would go..."wow, that's wrong."

 

[Buffy Summers]

lol I just thought it sounded cool and was a cool idea. AND I loved when Nathan's character on Castle speaks a little Mandarin and tells Becket he learned it from a tv show 😀

 

[Washburne]

As for how they said it I never thought of it as being perfect but not that I cared much. It was just fun. Just as I felt about the swedish spoken in Buffy. I was very happy to have subtitles but loved the fact that they tried and did the best they could.

For those who haven't watched it or want to watch it again.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai6wnFVhiaE"]Castle - Rick Castle speaks chinese (the TV show part) - YouTube[/ame]


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYTM5H2IDSg"]Firefly - Special Feature - Speaking Chinese - YouTube[/ame]

 

[white avenger]

I don't speak the language, so they could have been speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, some other Oriental language, or Swahili, for that matter. I couldn't have been able to tell one way or the other. As for their pronunciation, however, it must be remembered that they wouldn't be speaking the Mandarin language as it is spoken today, but rather the way that it will be spoken several centuries in the future. Languages change due to any number of factors, and being separated by several light years from the "Earth that was" and it's actual source, there's no possible way how we could conjecture on their pronunciation by that time. The fact that we can actually understand the English language is probably the most unbelievable single element, though an inescapable one, of the entire series.

Back during the "Enterprise's" original five year mission, I remember Gene Roddenberry addressing this as regard to the language, slang, customs (The Federation celebrates Thanksgiving with the traditional turkey dinner), and general expressions used by Kirk and his crew by simply saying that it would be impossible to present the show any other way without using subtitles for the entirety of each episode, something that the fans wouldn't care for. I think that that pretty much applies here as well.

 

[Washburne]

As for their pronunciation, however, it must be remembered that they wouldn't be speaking the Mandarin language as it is spoken today, but rather the way that it will be spoken several centuries in the future. Languages change due to any number of factors, and being separated by several light years from the "Earth that was" and it's actual source, there's no possible way how we could conjecture on their pronunciation by that time.

To me that seems to be an explanation used quite a lot. Which is all fine and all if it weren''t for one thing.

Which is why I was glad to see you adding this.

The fact that we can actually understand the English language is probably the most unbelievable single element, though an inescapable one, of the entire series.

 

[Llamastrangler]

It's fun to speculate on whether there could be an "in-universe" explanation for this poor pronunciation of Mandarin- not that I'm in any position to judge how poor it is.😀 There seems to be a bit of Chinese influence on design and fashion in the Firefly 'verse, especially on the Inner Planets (I'm thinking especially of the party in Shindig), but there don't seem to be that many people of Chinese origin. Plus, Mandarin seems to be very much the second language- everyone speaks English and only uses Mandarin for exclamations (that's a clever way of getting Fox to allow swearing, I suppose!).

Could it be that the American / Chinese alliance took place some time ago, perhaps on Earth-That-Was, and that the planets of the Alliance are of predominantly American descent? This might explain the poor pronunciation somewhat?

 

[ashleigh]

I just watched the pilot last night and was wondering about this too! I was also wondering why it seemed to have control over people when Mal spoke in Chinese. Or was I just noticing something that wasn't there? 😛

 

[Zauberei]

The use of faux-Mandarin was odd and off-putting, and I suspected that the actors, though trying valiantly, failed to convey it comprehensibly. I understand why Mandarin words and phrases sounded the way that they did in the show, but it is a complicated, technical Linguistics concept that would be lost on non-professionals. It's odd that the profane Chinese that I've known since grammar school was never heard in the show.

 

[JCoatsworth]

I don't know anything about the Chinese language, but I think that it does sound really weird sometimes. In the bonus features they joke about how crappy their Mandarin is and that the Chinese people who watch the series will laugh their asses off 😀

But I think it's perfectly okay that they suck at speaking a language that's completely strange to them. In the BtVS episode Gingerbread, there's a newspaper article written in German. I paused the DVD to read it and you guys have no idea how bad the texts grammar is 😀 In the same episode, Giles speaks German and his pronunciation is hilarious 😀

But what do you expect? I have absolutely no problem with stuff like that.

 

[randiann]

I don't know anything about the Chinese language, but I think that it does sound really weird sometimes. In the bonus features they joke about how crappy their Mandarin is and that the Chinese people who watch the series will laugh their asses off 😀

But I think it's perfectly okay that they suck at speaking a language that's completely strange to them. In the BtVS episode Gingerbread, there's a newspaper article written in German. I paused the DVD to read it and you guys have no idea how bad the texts grammar is 😀 In the same episode, Giles speaks German and his pronunciation is hilarious 😀

But what do you expect? I have absolutely no problem with stuff like that.

I would hope that the show would employ a language coach if they are going to use another language that an actor is not fluent in, but I think it is understandable that a person who isn't fluent in a language is gonna butcher the pronounciation at least a good deal of the time, especially if the language is completely unrelated to their own native toungue like Mandarin is to English. Mandarin (I assume) has a completely different structure than English, and (as [MENTION=11500]drizzlydaze[/MENTION] mentioned) has tones that are integral to the correct pronounciation of words which English lacks.

I didn't particularly "get" the reason for the use of Mandarin on the show; it seems to me like if there was a melding of cultures there should be more than just a few naughty words in Mandarin used. I would expect some everyday words to be used as well, which (obviously) wouldn't have worked very well unless the people making the show wanted to subtitle at least part of it. I thought it was kind of hokey, but that is me.

Back to pronounciation. The grammar nerd in me really wants them to get it right. The realist in me (which isn't a lot of me) accepts that they most likely won't.

 

[JCoatsworth]

I would hope that the show would employ a language coach if they are going to use another language that an actor is not fluent in, but I think it is understandable that a person who isn't fluent in a language is gonna butcher the pronounciation at least a good deal of the time, especially if the language is completely unrelated to their own native toungue like Mandarin is to English. Mandarin (I assume) has a completely different structure than English, and (as [MENTION=11500]drizzlydaze[/MENTION] mentioned) has tones that are integral to the correct pronounciation of words which English lacks.

They did use a language coach on Firefly. But, as you said, Oriental languages are totally different from Western languages. The whole basic way how to pronounce the languages are different, so it is only natural that they can't do it perfectly, unless they studied it or lived there for several years.

Or we could just assume that the Chinese language changed over the past 500 years and that their pronunciation is perfect 😛