Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 September 4

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September 4

Distinction between b and p

B and P look as if they have the same mouth movements and tongue movements. Yet, they sound different. What is that difference? What is happening? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 16:22, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

A simple answer is that B is voiced (the vocal cords are vibrated to make the sound); P is voiceless (no vibration). Voice_(phonetics)#In_English gives more information. Bazza (talk) 16:30, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

In English specifically, the main difference is that /p/ is aspirated and /b/ is not. Say both with your hand in front of your mouth and note the breath of air that accompanies the /p/ sound. Meanwhile /b/ in English is often devoiced, and will usually be understood as /b/ as long as it isn't aspirated. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  16:43, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

There's a little puff of air with both, but with p it's stronger than with b. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Also try saying "pot" and then "spot" with your hand in front of your mouth - in English there's no puff of air the second time! (Or a much weaker puff.) Adam Bishop (talk) 23:52, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

English has many voiced/unvoiced minimal pairs, besides b/p, there's also v/f, ð/θ (as in mother vs. moth), d/t, g/k, j/ch, etc. --Jayron32 00:28, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Chinese watching soap opera with Chinese subtitles?

The Chinese vendor of a corner store around me is often watching soap opera with Chinese subtitles. I assume he speaks a different type of Chinese than it's spoken on the tv show. Is that a common occurrence in China? What language are they probably speaking in? And if people watch frequently TV in this variety of Chinese, why won't they learn it?--Hofhof (talk) 19:54, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

It is possible that he can't really change the subtitles. The subtitles are programmed onto the screen and cannot be switched off with a button. The popular Chinese game show Fei Cheng Wu Rao has subtitles programmed into the screen. I don't think it is possible to remove it. If I remember correctly, I think that show uses Simplified Chinese Characters, which would be readable by Mainland Chinese people.50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:53, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

A number of major Chinese "dialects", aka topolects, though descended from common ancestors, are no more closely related than, say, Spanish and Romanian (which both descend from Latin): Beijing Mandarin and Cantonese/Guandongese (a frequent mother tongue of Chinese catering and retail workers in the West) are a good example. Other 'Chinese' languages (of which the Government of the PRC recognise more than 50) are far less related.

Learning whichever (of several possibilities) other Chinese language(s) one sometimes watches TV programmes in is not a trivial undertaking, especially for a low-paid worker in a foreign country. I myself, a native English speaker, sometimes watch football with a Scottish Gaelic commentary (and no subtitles), and listen to Gaelic-language folk music, but I'm certainly not planning to learn Gaelic! {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195}

The Chinese people are united with the common language of China, 普通话 (pu tong hua)，which is taught in schools. Children may speak that (also known as standard Mandarin) and their regional dialect. Sometimes, a person's regional dialect carries over to the lingua franca in the form of an accent. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 01:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

While true, and very likely the subtitles the OP mentions were written in MSM, though there are of course different written forms of other Chinese (Sinitic) topolects (i.e. "dialects" not mutually intelligible with MSM) and non-Sinitic languages, this is irrelevant to the OP's observation of a Chinese person outside China watching TV. Most of the Chinese diaspora do not, nor did their ancestors ever, speak MSM or the closely related Beijingese, because they originated from the Yuehai dialects-speaking rather than the Mandarin Chinese-speaking regions of China. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195}

The OP doesn't really mention his location, so I didn't know he meant outside of China. Anyway, that's interesting to know. I would have thought that overseas Chinese descendants mostly would be illiterate in Chinese, so I didn't really take them into account. If they were recent immigrants, then they would have formal education in standard Mandarin Chinese, as well as speak whatever regional dialect. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 03:59, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

@50.4.236.254:, I'm curious about your experience of / as an overseas Chinese person (which I think you mentioned you are). In Australia, it is more common than not for ethnic Chinese children to attend Saturday Chinese schools, and so emerge with a fair degree of familiarity with a Chinese language (usually standard Mandarin or Cantonese). Is that not the case where you are? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:46, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't think I've mentioned my ethnicity. Anyway, there is one Australian girl on YouTube (Jasmine Lipska，that's her YouTube channel name) who says her father is Polish and mother is Chinese. She learned English through the Australian school system, and English became her native language. She learned the Szechuan dialect before school, but couldn't speak it anymore. She learned Mandarin Chinese by going to Chinese school every Saturday. She learned a few words in Polish, like how to count to ten, but couldn't carry a conversation in Polish. Her father wanted her to study Mandarin. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 01:02, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

"The OP doesn't really mention his location, so I didn't know he meant outside of China." He doesn't explicitly state it, but (a) he specifies a Chinese vendor, which would be superfluous if he was talking about someone in China; (b) his other questions, particularly "Is that a common occurrence in China?" strongly imply that he isn't in China or he'd likely already know the answers. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.204.180.96 (talk) 16:40, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean that he is watching TV in the store itself? If so, it could just be that the general noise in the store would make it hard to hear the TV (and/or he needs to keep the volume down so as to not annoy the customers). Iapetus (talk) 10:17, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

If he wanted to watch the shop and keep up with the programme he could watch it on computer with headphones. 92.24.110.225 (talk) 11:07, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Having subtitles is simply the normal thing on Chinese TV. As far as I've seen, virtually all programmes on Chinese state TV are routinely broadcast with subtitles (both the spoken word and the subtitles being in standard Mandarin). My understanding is it's for the benefit of speakers of other dialects, who might find the written Mandarin a more accessible aid to understanding the spoken form. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:30, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Is there no regional programming on Chinese television? China is a huge country. 92.24.110.225 (talk) 11:40, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Very little, as far as I know. Outside Hong Kong and Macao, Television in China lists only a single local network that broadcasts in Cantonese, plus a few others in non-Chinese minority languages, but nothing in other local dialects. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:00, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

No actually. Taiwan has a significant number of Hokkien shows and Shantou has a few channels in the Teochew dialect. Regional dialects play a significant role in everyday life in the southern parts of China and often time is more spoken than Mandarin outside of official circles.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:04, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, where does the article say there is "only a single local network that broadcasts in Cantonese"? The state broadcaster is China Central Television, which operates fifty channels. 92.24.110.225 (talk) 12:32, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Future Perfect is presumably referring to Television Southern, which is the only broadcaster listed in that article as broadcasting in Cantonese. Most regional TV stations will have some programming in the local language, especially traditional opera and sometimes comedies, but would not broadcast solely or even mainly in the local language.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:37, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

As has been pointed out above the subtitles are probably hard wired in, and as has been sort-of pointed out above, the main reason subtitles are needed is because almost no-one in China is native in standard Mandarin - which is an artifically constructed dialect, but is the dialect usually used on screen.

The other reason it is needed is because a lot of Chinese soap operas use non-stage trained actors who do not enunciate properly, and even if you have an advanced / near native level of familiarity with standard Mandarin, you might well have trouble understanding them. This is especially so in, for example, period dramas, where the dialogue might include historical references or be sprinkled with archaic phrases (for authenticity) that would not necessarily be familiar to modern audiences.

The particular vendor in OP's question might also just be working in a noisy environment which would make it more difficult to hear the dialogue. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:35, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I've always wondered how the Chanese and Japanese can manage to recognize and read very complex characters with a lot of strokes at such a fast speed and of such a small size. Can you comment how they do this feat?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

In Chinese cursive handwriting (on paper or on the screen), it is usually not necessary to write every single brushstroke. If you just get the form correctly in the right context, you can make out the word. I think there is a study similar to this phenomenon done on English speakers, in which English speakers can read an entire scrambled text. The idea is that English speakers recognize the word as a whole, not the individual letters. Also, memory chunking really helps in recognizing different components of characters instead of recognizing individual brushstrokes. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 02:11, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I believe it takes the Chinese and Japanese much longer to learn to read than it does people who use an alphabet. It's a case of practice makes perfect. 92.8.216.51 (talk) 20:18, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

This reference may be of use. http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html 50.4.236.254 (talk) 03:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Compare this to a street signs or whole words. You don't read the single strokes, you recognize the overall shape. Same with reading texts with scrambled letters or additional words where you think you read correctly. --Explosivo (talk) 11:54, 10 September 2017 (UTC)