The Chinese alphabet
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Before moving to China, I was warned by Hubby and colleagues that I’ll need to speak the local “English” in order to be understood. I was dumbstruck when they rattled off the alphabet as pronounced by the locals.
Poor fellas! Their exposure to spoken English is so low that they can’t help but pronounce the alphabets the following way:
A - A
B - B
C - shee
D - D
E - E
F - eh-foo
G - G
H - Hedge-ch
I - I
J - something else
K - K
L - el-luo
M - em-moo
N - urn
O - O
P - P
Q - quen (”queen” missing the additional e)
R - ar-luo
S - es-sze
T - T
U - U
V - V
W - something else
X - ek
Y - Y
Z - something else
While shopping for clothes, I needed to ask for sizes and that’s where I was forced to use “M-moo” and “El-luo”. XL was something else.
After chatting a bit with the salespeople, I decided to correct them. They were very happy to finally pronounce the correct way.
Interestingly, the Chinese are prejudiced against other Chinese when it comes to learning English. If you are a Chinese and try to correct them, they INSIST that they are right. It all boils down to trust - somehow, they think other Chinese can’t be “correct-er” than them!
LOL, it pays not to look like Chinese in some cases.
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Filed in China, culture, language learning 4 Comments so far
Syn on 09 May 2008 at 2:56 pm #
haha, i can imagine ur horror finding this out and of course, you wld want to correct them esp since u’re an english teacher!
huisia on 10 May 2008 at 5:47 am #
i have to say ….24th floor eh-foo…everytime i order a meal..
not even china, hong kong people also have weird pronunciation.
Vien on 10 May 2008 at 6:07 am #
LOL! This is too funny…you really nailed the alphabets to the T! Imagine this, I’m working w/ Taiwanese and Chinese coworkers here..and you would imagine they would pick up the correct pronunciation of the alphabets after years of living in the states. Nope, they will pronounce the way you’ve just written.
KittyCat on 10 May 2008 at 8:28 am #
Syn - Not horrified but definitely with raised eyebrows. I *really* coudn’t help it. I think I did OK (you know how blunt I can be sometimes) because all the salesgirls recited, “em”, “el” and “es” and “eks el” over and over again.
Hui Sia - Same here! It’s funny ya? Oh, the Hong Kies have such a sing-song way of speaking English. Kind of cute.
Vien - You’re serious??? Ya, I’d imagine they would have corrected it by now. Poor things, nobody tried to help? Do you dare try? I was VERY careful and gentle about it because I was scared of their loud voices