Today we are going to talk about a very fun topic.
I watched a video the other day that was released by AsianBoss.
The video is a street interview and it's about
whether South Koreans can speak Korean without Korean English words in their daily communication.
They interviewed a lot of Koreans on the street and let them try if they can pull it off.
They were all very confident at beginning.
But in the end, they find it that
there are so so many Korean English words in their daily life
that they can not express themselves completely if not using these Korean English words at all.
Since I learned Korean before.
I'm very interested in this topic.
If you guys want to watch the whole video, go check out AsianBoss's channel.
So what am I going to do today?
After watching this video, I was thinking
that maybe we Chinese people can pull it off without using exotic words.
Actually it's not that easy.
Can we really do it?
So let's watch this video together
and find out if it's possible to not use exotic words at all in Chinese.
In Chinese language, "menu" is pronounced as "caidan“ .
"caidan“ is absolutely a local Chinese word. So all good!
Let's move to next word.
In Chinese, "shower" is pronounceed as "xizao“ .
"xizao“ sounds like a local Chinese word. So it's fine.
The second word here is "stretching", in Chinese it sounds like "shenzhan".
"shenzhan" is totally a Chinese word, all good.
The third one is "boxing".
"boxing" is "quanji" in Chinese.
So it's also a local Chinese word. Clear.
The next word is "cellphone".
"cellphone" is kind of strange in Korean language and it's from an weird English expression:
"hand phone".
In Chinese language, it's called"shouji"
"shouji" also sounds like a local Chinese word, all good.
The next word is "coffee".
"coffee" sounds like "coffee" itself in Korean,
and there's no other word there to replace that word.
So in Chinese it's ...
"kafei"...
OMG, I don't think "kafei" is a local Chinese word. "kafei"...
a refreshing drink made by coffee beans imported from the West?
This expression isn't fine with me.
Coz we need to use a single word to describe it.
So the word "coffee" can not be replaced by other Chinese words if we want to match the thing with a single word.
Although Chinese Language System is a very integrated system.
exotic words still cannot be avoided.
Next!
The word "card",
which sounds like "card" in Korean,
and it's "kapian" in Chinese. Sounds like a local word. Let's see what's going on next.
The next expression is "guesthouse" and "hotel".
In Korean, they are borrowed from English.
And in Chinese "guesthouse" is "minsu",
"hotel" is "lvguan" or "jiudian".
These two words are legit Chinese words, all good.
In the video, the interviewee asked "What do you use to eat a salad?"
The word "fork" is used in Korean language which is borrowed from English.
But the interviewer are not allowed to use English or any other exotic words,
so they have no choice but to say that they use chopsticks to eat salad.
In Chinese, "fork" is "chazi", so that's also a Chinese word.
Alright, we just finished the video.
At beginning, I thought that...
We can use local Chinese words to handle all problem in all the situations
without mentioning any exotic word. But as a matter of fact,
there are some words like "coffee" and "salad",
and "sofa" here in my room,
all these exotic words are needed in our daily life.
Or maybe we could describe "sofa" as "a big chair" in Chinese? It's kinda weird.
Therefore, we can tell that languages are always evolving and never stop changing.
Even in an integrated language system, like Chinese,
still, exotic words are indispensable.
I'd like to finish up by saying that every language has its own history, its own evolution and its own formation,
no matter how it is influenced by the period,
we should all respect it,
coz language is used for communication.
I have learned Korean more than 2 years, and I like it so very much.
This is today's Kevin in Shanghai,
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See you next time, peace~