Visitors from Taiwan Came to the Chinese Class
The day we welcomed two visitors from Taiwan happened to coincide with our Chinese class. Thinking it would be a great opportunity, I asked them to interact with the students.
The content changed suddenly, and the students looked a bit nervous. I said this:
"Today, I am the 'conversation police.' I will only confirm whether you understand each other. I will not interpret."
Decoding Names
The interaction began with the students trying to catch the visitors' names by ear alone. Only after the students could correctly repeat the pronunciation did I write the Pinyin on the blackboard.
One visitor said:
"I am Shiwen. It's the 'shi' from 'shige' (poetry)."
However, everyone looked puzzled. Even when she followed up by explaining 'Three Hundred Tang Poems,' they still didn't understand. In the language they were used to, it was called 'kanshi' (Chinese poetry).
Finally, one person asked,
"Is it the 'shi' from 'kanshi'?"
And the mystery was solved.
The other visitor said,
"I am Dingling. It's the 'ding' from 'jia-yi-bing-ding' (A-B-C-D)."
I wrote 'jia-yi-bing-ding' on the blackboard, and finally everyone understood.
Next was 'ling'.
The visitor explained,
"The left side is 'mountain,' and the right side is the 'ling' from 'mingling' (order)."
(Note: The Chinese character for [Ling] is written as [岭])
The students understood 'mountain,' but they couldn't catch 'mingling' (order). Perhaps because it's not a word they encounter often in daily life, even with her gestures, it was hard to get across.
When I said 'meirei' in Japanese, one person finally said,
"Is it the 'rei' from 'sanrei' (mountain ridge)?"
they responded.
Later, the guest said that when they saw the characters for "Reiwa" in town, they remembered this scene.
"If I had said the 'Rei' from 'Reiwa' back then, it might have gotten through right away."
However, Japanese era names almost never come up in Chinese class.
The Quagmire of Pronunciation
Next was the students' self-introductions.
A person with the surname Hasegawa tried to explain the 'Ha' (長) character by saying,
"It's the 'Chang' from 'Chang Jiang' (Yangtze River)."
they said.
However, the pronunciation didn't come across well, and it seemed to sound like 'cang jiang' or 'qiang jiang' to the guest's ears. Even though they were pronouncing it so desperately that their tongue and lips were stiff, the guest looked puzzled and tilted their head, asking,
"Is it Edogawa?"
they asked.
Finally, another student threw them a lifeline.
"It's the 'Chang' from 'long/short' (chōtan), and the 'Gu' from 'valley' (tani)."
Only then did the guest understand it was 'Hasegawa.' The person let out a big sigh of relief.
I added,
"The 'Gu' from 'rice grain' (inaya)."
Since 'Gu' is the Japanese word for 'grain,' 'inaya' was a new word for everyone.
Another beginner used the 'shan' from 'mountain range' and the 'gen' from 'tree root' to explain their surname, 'Yamane.'
However, the tones were off, and '???' appeared on everyone's faces. No matter how many times they repeated it, it didn't get through, and in the end, they had no choice but to explain it in Japanese.
Then, other students spoke up to help.
“It’s the ‘shan’ from Mount Fuji.”
The guest understood in an instant.
If someone had followed up ‘tree root’ with ‘grass root,’ it might have been even clearer. However, for a beginner, it is not easy to immediately rephrase something into a different expression.
The classroom gradually turned into a ‘word riddle contest.’ When someone got stuck, everyone would guess and help fill in the gaps.
“Hmm?”
“One more time!”
“I see, so that was the character!”
Such voices and laughter spread through the classroom time and again.
28 Years of Chinese and AI
The oldest student in the class has been studying Chinese for 28 years. That day, she brought a piece of writing she had composed herself.
She read it aloud carefully, paragraph by paragraph. Because her pronunciation was quite accurate, when the guest finished listening, they said,
“Your Chinese is truly wonderful.”
They were impressed.
After class, everyone passed the text around to read it, admiring it as an ‘amazing composition.’
Then she laughed and explained,
“I had AI polish it for me.”
By borrowing the help of AI, she was able to express what she truly wanted to convey in a more accurate form.
Conversation on Paper Fans
Finally, the guests took out a dozen or so paper fans.
They said that in the past, when they interacted with Japanese people, they often felt an awkward atmosphere because they couldn't communicate and could only nod or smile.
They had written down what they wanted to say on the fans in advance.
One side of the paper fan already had Chinese written on it.
Nice to meet you.
Please eat a lot.
Ishikawa is very beautiful.
The students' task was to write the corresponding Japanese on the other side.
The tense atmosphere in the classroom gradually softened.
Everyone was staring intently at the Chinese on the fans, thinking about what Japanese would be appropriate.
Before long, the guests picked up the fans with Japanese written on them and began to "converse" with the students.
The fans had become another tool for interaction.
The simplest character
When we took a commemorative photo at the end, someone was holding up a fan with "Ishikawa" written on it.
However, just a little while earlier, it had taken the students quite a long time to understand that the place the guests were going to the next day was "Ishikawa."
The reason was simple.
They couldn't catch the "Shi" in "Shitou (stone)."
For the guests, "Shi" was the simplest kanji imaginable. However, while Chinese textbooks contain conversations about weather, shopping, and hospitals, "Shi" almost never appears.
Through this interaction, the students realized the lack of everyday vocabulary and the importance of correct pronunciation.
And the guests from Taiwan also realized the following:
When a native speaker's "common sense of language" meets a foreigner's "textbook knowledge," sometimes the simplest characters become the hardest to explain in a way that gets the meaning across.
Chinese version of the text