Paper by Yanru Lu and me about #reduplication in #MandarinChinese is now (pre-)published:

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226725101047

#Linguistics #HPSG #Grammar #Morphology #fun #OpenAccess

#compoundWatch: useful #MandarinChinese compound:
病友 bing4you3 illness + friend: 'friend made while being in a hospital', and also just 'wardmate'

Interesting: #English #inflectionalMorphology on a #MandarinChinese verb (or better Verb-Object construction), even if in meme context: 搬砖 ban1zhuan1 carry + brick 'do hard physical labor' + ing
Probably the fact that Mandarin Chinese also has progressive markers that follow the verb make this easier (?)
#borrowing #loanMorphology

@SusanneOpitz I am a linguist mostly interested in semantics, morphology, and the semantics/syntax interface. I nowadays mostly work on #English, other languages I have worked on include #German and #MandarinChinese. Methods range from corpus linguistics/distributional semantics to psycholinguistic experiments.

Interesting language fact of the day: #English "kowtow" /ˌkaʊˈtaʊ/ could, orthography-wise, be pronounced very closely to the current #MandarinChinese pronunciation of its origin word, 叩头 kou4tou4 [kʰoutʰou] (disregarding tone). Compare English "tow" v. 'to draw' with the US pronunciation /toʊ/.
#loanwords #orthography #

Seize the First Mover Advantage - Andrew Jihi Bustamante and Tom Bilyeu

#language #firstmoveradvantage #mandarinchinese

Saw Jia Zhangke's "Caught by the tides" yesterday (thanks https://www.cineding-leipzig.de/). In Mandarin Chinese it is called 风流一代 feng1liu2 yi1dai4 'dissolute/loose generation', in my view a slightly better fit. Mostly because even the metaphorical usage of 'tide' irritates me given that the main role of water in the movie is played by the Yangtze which in the movie (and perhaps in general) is quite uninfluenced by tides.

Anyways, a great, slow movie :)

#TitlesInTranslation #English #MandarinChinese

Jersey Polyglot 2014

https://makertube.net/w/risAcQmcgJYE5mrW4KxeGi

Week 26, 2025: Top album languages found on @wikidata right now.

Mandarin overtakes German and Turkish to become the World's 15th Most Musical Language. 🥳🇹🇼🇨🇳🎉

For the complete list, see https://w.wiki/6TNS

📊 #Wikidata 🎶🎵 #ExMusica @querywikidata

#MandarinChinese #官话

Watching videos of Americans trying to pronounce Chinese words is confusing. On the one hand, it's nice to see them getting away from controlled media in the US. On the other, they have no idea how to pronounce xiaohongshu and haven't bothered to look it up.

Just for future reference the "x" in pinyin is similar to the "sh" sound, but English doesn't have it. Using an "sh" sound is a better approximation of the sound in Mandarin, rather than the random assortment of sounds that I keep hearing.

[ #XHS #tikTok #xiaoHongShu #pronunciation #mandarinChinese #Chinese ]

Week 51, 2024: Top album languages found on @wikidata right now.

Some action at the bottom of the chart, Mandarin overtakes Cantonese for the last spot.

For the complete list, see https://w.wiki/6TNS

📊 #Wikidata 🎶🎵 #ExMusica @querywikidata

#官话 #官話 #Guānhuà #MandarinChinese

There are an estimated 1.5 billion speakers of the #English language worldwide.

There are an estimated 1.1 billion speakers of #MandarinChinese but from what I've seen on the internet about compulsory Mandarin in China I'm a little querulous of that number.

Then comes #Hindi with 600+ million speakers.

And so on and so forth, but these are the top three, which I found interesting to think about today. Those are huge, absolutely unfathomable numbers of people, really.

Pronouncing “r” in Mandarin Chinese (can a native speaker confirm?)

You place your tongue on the roof of your mouth. It points almost upwards and is situated on the hard flat part of the roof.
* r at start of syllable: like pleaSure (a voiced “sh”) – e.g. 人 rén

In contrast, at the end of a syllable, “r” is pronounced exactly(?) as in English:
* r at end of syllable: like faiR – e.g. 二 èr

UPDATE: It looks like I’m right: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/1fgpgy8/how_to_pronounce_r_at_the_end_of_a_syllable_%E4%BA%8C%E5%84%BF/

#Mandarin #Chinese #MandarinChinese

My system for learning Mandarin Chinese
http://www.langtales.de/2024/09/chinese-learning-tips.html

#Chinese #MandarinChinese #Mandarin #LanguageLearning

Scan of a somewhat unsuccessful overhead projector slide of mine used in an intro to #English #linguistics class (in 2008) to illustrate the pitfalls of the comparative method. Results: some students refering to the relatedness of #MandarinChinese and #English in the final exam

This is just my opinion, and I have to qualify that I’m a natively bilingual English-Mandarin speaker from Singapore, whose linguistic intuitions may not align with those of a monolingual speaker in, say, Beijing, but “x” in Mandarin sounds to me like “sh” in English only if you are absolutely desperate to make any kind of comparison at all. Like calling smörrebröd ”Swedish Pizza”. #linguistics #mandarinchinese #Xitter (apparently?)

Duolingo in Chinese is "多邻国”

多 duo = more
邻 lin = neighbour
国 guo = country

#languagelearners #langtoot #MandarinChinese

A great 3 hour introductory course to #MandarinChinese #Mandarin #Chinese #LearnChinese
Learn Chinese for Beginners: 30 Basic Chinese Lessons in 3 Hours | SUPER EASY Chinese Course
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQOUSJOVHp8

How Chinese Tones Work in Chinese Songs #Chinese #LearnChinese #MandarinChinese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbfqPVjzX7E