-
Poor Pronunciation Leads to
Misunderstanding
I
was
having
a
conversation
with
a
friend
about
food
and
he
was
telling me
how fond he was of Western food. At one point,
however, he
said something that sounded
like,
“I
really like pizza
pizza.
”
It would be
like a westerner saying
“I
like dumplings
dumplings.
”
The problem was
poor pronunciation. What the student
really want to say was,
“I
really like
a piece of
pizza.
”
Some People Will Eat Anything
I
often
eat
Chinese
food
when
I
was
young
in
Canada.
One
time
I
went
into
a
restaurant
and
ordered
a
“
fried
rice
”
.
When
the
waiter
repeated
the
order
to
me,
however,
I
was
startled.
He
had
trouble
pronouncing the
letter
“
r
”
,
so it sounded to me like he said,
“Okay
, you
want
one fly lice.
”
Poor Pronunciation Leads to
Misunderstanding
The pronunciation problem here is
essentially a problem of
“
word
joining
”
(
连读
).
In English,
when certain words are read together, the sounds
blend together: piece of
= pieca
Now, take a look at some other common
examples of phonetics:
want to = wanna
（美俚）想要，希望
don?t
know = dunno
（口）不知道
going to =
gonna
（美）将要
kind
of = kinda
有一点，有几分
isn
?
t /
aren?t
=
ain
?
t
不是
what do you =
whatcha
什么
give
me = gimme
（口）给我
Some People Will Eat Anything
Now try and practice the
following words containing
“
r
”
and
“
l
”
.
tall [t
?
:l]
tar
[t
ɑ
:] n.
焦油
,
柏油
rice
[rais]
lice [lais] n.
虱子
present
['prez
?
nt, pri'zent]
pleasant
['plez
?
nt] adj.
令人愉快的
peer
[pi
?
]
peel [pi:l]
bar [b
ɑ
:]
ball [b
?
:l]
pool [pu:l]
poor
[pu
?
,
p
?
:]
tile [tail] n.
瓦片，瓷砖
tire
['tai
?
] vi.
疲劳，劳累，
n.
（美）轮胎
To Cook or
Not to Cook?
I love to cook
and one time I invited several friends over the
dinner.
We decided that it would be
“
potluck
”
, meaning that each person would
prepare a dish. I made several dishes,
one of which was a
“
salad
”
. Most
of my
friends liked but one person was curious and
asked,
“
Who cooked
this salad?
”
The
correct answer is that no one
“
< br>cooked
”
the salad because
salads are
“
raw
”
.
potluck
指的是美国一种经常
举行的聚会形式，也就是在某一个人或几个人的提议下举
行一个午餐会或晚餐会，
但是参加聚会的每个人都要带一个菜或者带一种饭后甜食。主
人除了为
聚会提供场地外，
也只要准备一个菜，
或买一些饮料就行了。<
/p>
这就叫做
: Potluck
lunch or potluck supper
。可以想象
，举行
potluck
的时候，大家能够尝到许多不同的食
品。
Potluck
还有另外一层意思，那就是：有什么就要什么。用在吃的方面就成了：有什么
吃什么
的意思。
Come into the house and
take potluck with me.
就是说
“
来同我吃顿便
饭吧
”
。
比如，一个人碰到了好几年没见面的老朋友，他说：
Say, Charley, if you don't have plans
for tonight, why don't you come out to our house
and have a potluck with us? Helen won't
have time to cook anything special, but she
can put an extra plate on the table for
you.
喂，查理，你要是晚上没事就上我家来吃便
饭。有什
么吃什么。我太太不一定有什么时间做什么菜，但是多加一双筷子是绝对没有
问题的。<
/p>
Please Come Back!
Almost every Chinese
restaurant
I?
ve been to ends
the same way: as
I
?
m leaving the
door, the polite staff says to me, in the best
English they
can,
“
welcome
again
”
. This is of course
ridiculous because I haven
?
t
even
left;
how
why
are
they
welcoming
me
for
coming?
That
?
s
because
in
Chinese
one
would
say
“
欢
迎
您
再
来
”<
/p>
which
is
a
word-for-word
translation. What they should say is
“
Thank you. Please come
again.
”
Please Come
Back!
餐厅常用语：
non-smoking section
无烟区
smoking section
吸烟区
a table for
XXX people
能坐几人的桌子
Do you accept credit cards?
你们这能用信用卡吗？
well-
done
全熟
medium-well
七分熟
medium
五分熟
rare
三分熟
overcooked a.
煮的过久的
undercooked a.
煮的欠熟的，火候不够的
send
sth. back
退菜
A
Colorful Wolf
I
remember
once
having
a
conversation
with
a
friend
about
relationships
and
romance
in
Chinese.
My
friend
then
asked
me
in
Chinese,
“
你的那位朋友不会是色狼吧
?
”
At that time I had only learned
a
little
Chinese
and
didn
?
t
understand
the
meanings,
so
I
asked,
“
what
does
?
色狼
?
mean?
”
In the best English
he could, my friend said,
“
?
色狼
?
is a colorful
wolf.
”
A
Colorful Wolf
“色狼”的正确英语表达：
lecher
好色之徒
sex
maniac
性欲狂
womanizer
流氓，玩弄女性的人
pervert
性变态者
英语中用来形容人的动物：
pig
言行举止恶心，让人无法接收的人
chicken
胆小的人，胆小鬼
sheep
通常指容易脸红，害羞的人
dog
没有原则的人，败类
turtle
性情和行动很慢的人
fox
狡猾的人
snake
不讲信用的人
Giving
Face
In
Chinese,
it
?
s
very
common
for
people
to
talk
about
“
face
”
.
However, when we try
and translate that into English it can sound
pretty
awkward. Take a look at how one
student translates the following:
“I
give
you face,
you don
?
t want a face, you
lose your face, I turn my
face!
”
Giving Face
A
better
way
of
expressing
the
above
sentence
would
be,
“I?m
giving
you
a
chance
to
redeem
yourself
and
yet
you
don
?
t
take
it.
You
shame
yourself
and
you
anger
me.
”
与“面子”相关的词汇：
Embarrassedly adv.
尴尬地，难堪地
embarrassing a.
令人为难的
Awkward a.
别扭的，笨拙的
disgraceful a.
可耻的，不名誉的
shameless a.
不知羞耻的
shameful a.
不体面的
honor n.
尊敬，光荣
reputation n.
名誉，名声
be well
thought of
深思熟虑的
Don
?
t Stare
One time I asked a group of
students to make spoken presentations on
what kind of work they would like to do
in the future. One girl got up to
the
front
and
talked
about
how
she
wanted
to
be
a
nurse.
During
her
speech, however, she
commented like that,
“A
nurse spends lots of time
looking
at
people
in the
hospital.
”
Of
course,
what
?
s
she
wanted to
say
was
“
A nurse
spends lots of time looking after people in the
hospital.
”
Don
?
t Stare
Look about
四处寻找；考虑；查看
Look out
留神，照料
Look into
观察，窥视
Look down upon
看不起
Look like
长得像
Look up to
尊敬，仰望
Look ahead
计划未来，预测未来
You
?
re So Hot!
Being
from
Canada,
I
tend
to
prefer
cooler
weather.
One
particular
hot day I walked
into the classroom and one student, seeing hot
sweaty I
was, commented,
“
Teacher, you look so
hot.
”
Some students
understood
the double meaning of
“
hot
”
and laughed. What she could have said was
“
You must be uncomfortable
in this heat.
”
You
?
re So Hot!
In English, the word
“
hot
”
of course means
“
热
”
.
But in spoken English,
“
hot
”
also means
“
very
attractive
”
or
“<
/p>
sexy
”
, so never
say someone
“
looks
hot
”
unless you
really like them.
与“长得好看”相关词汇：
babe
n.
靓女
chick
[
?
i:k,
?
ik]
n.
靓女
hunk n.
帅哥
doll n.
洋娃娃，玩
偶
model material
模特坯子（特别适合当模特的人）
head turner
回头率高的，吸引人眼球的人或物
She/He is trouble
让人冲动的美女、帅哥
She is
gorgeous!
She turns me on.
她让我眼睛为之一亮
.
turn-
on
也可以当作名词用
,
它用来表示任何令你觉得很不错的人
,
事
,
物
.
She is such a turn-on.
她给我的感觉还蛮不错的
.
She is a cutie. / she is a hottie. (Hot
tie
是一个美国俚语，意思是非常热辣、性感、迷
人的靓妹，
也有用于男子的，意思就是帅哥了。但这个称呼有些轻佻和不雅，因此，如果当
面称一位
女士为
”hottie“
的话，可能会惹上麻烦。
美国总统奥巴马在水牛城吃小吃的时候，
顾客
Luann
Haley
当面赞扬他：
“You?re a hottie
with a smokin? little body”
。
这个不得体的赞扬，
令奥巴马尴尬万分。
)