No this is not an Irish bar joke, or a country song but a
reference to just how hard it is to learn the Chinese language. There are 4 tones in the language so you can
have one word but say it with 4
different tones and each tone will make that one word mean something completely
different. The tones derive from the four phonemic tones of Middle
Chinese, and are named even AKA
level (平 píng), rising (上 shǎng), going AKA departing (去 qù),
and entering AKA checked
(入 rù).
So by learning the subtle tone rules you can understand what word
is meant to be said, but all rules are
meant to be broken upon occasion and that brings us to chickens and hookers. At a Korean bbq dinner the other night one
of our translator friends was teaching us different words and we focused the
lesson on the food we were eating. He
was teaching me how to say chicken “ ji “
, but then explained that means live chicken .
If you are going to talk about chicken you are going to eat you say
“ jirou
“ which means chicken flesh. But in the next breath he informs me the exact
same word and tone for chicken also means hooker……… at that point I gave up and
just ordered another “pijiu” (beer).
Cheers, and next time you are ordering your next Chinese take -out
make sure you order chicken …. or you never know what will show up at your door.
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