Thread by @jeannette_ng

A thread of non representative anecdotes about being #bilingual (I speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English):

- slang based on literal translations of words ("that guy so inch") or phrases

I occasionally forget which language has which idiom (because some exist in both Chinese and English) so I end up in a conversation of explaining why I just called someone's muscles a really cute mouse 🐁

My body language and accent literally (if sometimes subtly) change when I swap languages. Cantonese-speaking Jeannette has a brasher stance. Mandarin-speaking Jeannette is more polite.

This is partly due to how I swap languages for different friend and family groups and thus the language swap is associated with different modes of myself. It's apparently odd to watch when I'm on the phone.

I don't really do bilingual puns as the language exists in different "lanes" in my brain, but D who isn't bilingual but picks up phrases from me is a constant stream of *painful* puns.

I've also noticed that words that sound exactly the same (because the language has too many homonyms?) don't make good puns in Cantonese, we only value things that sound a bit like one another.

Certain animal words are onomatopoeic and I love saying them regardless of language am currently speaking. 牛 (Ngao?) in Cantonese is one such example.

I've become very aware that idiom use in English and Chinese have different implications and registers. There was an trend in translations when I was young that loved peppering Very Serious Texts with folksy sayings like "stitch in time saves nine"

Nicknames can evolve through multiple languages and translations. A cousin of mine calls her brother Gorgi, which is based on 哥哥 (go go) which is brother in Cantonese.

My grandfather used to call me 精叻 (zeng lek) Which sounds a bit like Jeannette, it means cunning or clever

When I was at boarding school, we got some non-Mandarin speaking girls into Meteor Garden (aka Hana Yori Dango) and I translated all 27 episodes of it in REAL TIME.

Twice.

I can be a UN translator, I'm just saying.

Not all bilingual people obsess about minute differences btwn words. Some are like my father and will declare that every word has a basic equivalent and rolls his eyes at me when I compare the three different Chinese translations of LET IT GO (and other Disney songs)

By the same token, I will angrily refute assertions that 神仙 and just fairies. Or that 殭屍 are simply vampires (or zombies) And will angrily rant for hours on the subject of the nuances of these translations.

After way too much navel gazing on the subject, but I think I parse my Chinese name as the characters rather than the sounds. Which is very idiosyncratic to me but pronouncing Ng is different to me than 吳. The

When I briefly went out with a primarily Cantonese speaking bloke, I realised I couldn't dirty talk in Cantonese at all due to lack of sexy vocabulary and it was very disconcerting.

Example of thing that I suddenly noticed isn't A Thing in English. To compliment someone for having the smell of books about them, to smell like books. Especially a woman.

There are certain things in English that I refuse to accept, like "eating" soup. My dad has corrected me all my life and I just refuse. Soup is drunk.

Speaking of food, there's an oddity in how there are multiple meals I know as "tea" in Chinese and English and can only be distinguished by context. That is dimsum, high tea (scones, etc) and northern tea (dinner).

Every now and again I will be struck by the poetry of a Chinese phrase or think of an appropriate idiom, blurt it out in the most vulgar translation and then spend the next ten minutes explaining it in painful detail.

Because all jokes are funnier with explanation.

Remember how for a while there was a meme about photoshopping cat heads onto owls?

WELL THEY ALREADY HAVE CAT HEADS SO IT IS POINTLESS

YES THIS IS A HILL I WILL DIE ON

In Chinese owls are 猫头鹰 which means cat-headed eagle.

Also, I am not over the fact that 浪漫 (Lang man) which is "romantic" is a loanword. Like, wasn't there already a term that can be used to describe that overflow of emotion and swooning? No?

Also it's watery connotations fascinate.

If not obvious: not everyone bilingual does the body language/accent shift. Many of my cousins don't, for example. Some of whom are probably more fluent than me in Cantonese & live in Hong Kong, but they speak Cantonese with same Canadian accent that tinges their English.

Related but not so much about language, it sometimes takes me a moment to realise tropes in Cantonese/Chinese media don't exist in English media.

Last time I mused on this I wrote this thread:

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As implied above many things in a language a named for other things, these groups are obviously not universal.

So for example "soy milk". In Chinese it's 豆浆, which is literally bean pulp (or paste?) and thus I don't parse it as a milk or a milk substitute. It is its own thing.