The Internet is full of references to the shape of China's map, and how it resembles a rooster. Some Chinese Quorans have confirmed that their schoolteachers introduced the map to them in this way, by asking them to visualise a rooster looking East. (I've always thought China's map resembled Mao's face looking West and nibbling at Aksai Chin, but that's another matter.)
But that question has inspired a dad joke based on some wordplay. During my journey learning Mandarin, I came across the word 很 hěn (pronounced "h-uh-n", not "h-eh-n").
[The words for "hen" and "rooster" in German are Hühn and Hahn, respectively, and you can forget that factoid immediately since it's utterly irrelevant to this post.]
Some amateur artwork to support my weak joke
1. At first, I thought the word 很 hěn meant "very". That's what the initial lessons said too.
我 很 高兴 wǒ hěn gāoxìng "I (am) very happy"
I wondered why there was no use of a word to represent "am", or more generally, the verb "to be".
2. As I went along, I learnt that the word 是 shì, which means "to be", is only used to connect nouns to nouns, not nouns to adjectives.
So it's OK (in fact, mandatory) to use 是 shì in such a context:
a. 我 是 学生 wǒ shì xuéshēng ("I am (a) student") (because both "I" and "student" are either nouns or noun-equivalents)
b. 那 是 你 的 丈夫 吗? nà shì nǐ de zhàngfū ma? ("Is that your husband?", literally "That is you's husband (question particle)" (because both "that" and "husband" are nouns or noun-equivalents)
But it's wrong to use 是 shì to connect a noun with an adjective:
我 是 高兴 wǒ shì gāoxìng ("I am happy") [Note that this is wrong, people. Don't learn this.]
我 很 高兴 wǒ hěn gāoxìng is the correct form.
It doesn't actually mean "I very happy", even though 很 hěn is supposed to mean "very".
In this context, 很 hěn is just a connector that joins a noun to an adjective, as in all these examples.
a. 我 很 高兴 wǒ hěn gāoxìng "I (connector) happy"
b. 王 医生 早上 很 忙 wáng yīshēng zǎoshang hěn máng ("Dr. Wang is busy in the mornings", literally "Wang doctor morning (connector) busy")
c1. 今天 很 冷 jīntiān hěn lěng ("It's cold today", literally "Today (connector) cold"
I'm reminded of the very similar sentence structure used in Tamil:
c2. innikki kuLuru (literally, "today cold")
In fact, such a sentence seems a bit "bald", so in Tamil too, there is the compulsion to use the word romba ("very") as a connector.
c3. innikki romba kuLuru (literally, "today very cold")
In all the above cases, a noun is being connected to an adjective ("happy", "busy", "cold", etc.), and hence the connector word 很 hěn should be used rather than the verb 是 shì ("to be").
3. The 很 hěn disappears in the negative form.
To say "I am not happy", you would use
我 不 高兴 wǒ bù gāoxìng
You wouldn't say
我 不 很 高兴 wǒ bù hěn gāoxìng [This is wrong. Please don't learn this.]
4. The 很 hěn similarly disappears in the interrogative form, i.e., when you form a question.
你 高兴 吗？nǐ gāoxìng ma? ("Are you happy?", literally "You happy (question particle)")
You wouldn't say
你 很 高兴 吗？nǐ hěn gāoxìng ma? [This is wrong. Please don't learn this.]
5. In contrast to the connector word 很 hěn, the verb 是 shì ("to be") remains intact in all sentence forms - affirmative, negative and interrogative.
a. 我 是 学生 wǒ shì xuéshēng ("I am (a) student")
b. 我 不是 学生 wǒ bùshì xuéshēng ("I am not a student", literally "I not am student")
c. 你 是 学生 吗？nǐ shì xuéshēng ma? ("Are you a student?", literally, "You are (a) student (question particle)"
Along the way, notice how simple the structure of a Chinese sentence is, and how standard the negative and interrogative forms are.
6. In this context, it's worth introducing another interrogative form. It's of course possible to simply tack on the question particle 吗 ma (which has no tone, by the way), and a sentence miraculously turns into a question. But it's also possible to use the form "adjective-not-adjective" or "verb-not-verb" to ask the same question.
a1. 你 高兴 不 高兴 ? nǐ gāoxìng bù gāoxìng ("Are you happy or not?", literally "You happy not happy?")
Contrast this with the earlier form using the question particle 吗 ma:
a2. 你 高兴 吗? nǐ gāoxìng ma ("Are you happy?", literally "You happy (question particle)")
b1. 你 是不是 学生? nǐ shìbùshì xuéshēng? ("Are you a student?", literally "You are-not-are student?")
Contrast this with the earlier form using the question particle 吗 ma:
b2. 你 是 学生 吗? nǐ shì xuéshēng ma? ("Are you a student?", literally "You are student (question particle)")
When turning sentences with compound verbs into questions, only the "outer" verb is put into the "verb-not-verb" form.
a. 我 会 去 中国 wǒ huì qù zhōngguó ("I will go (to) China", literally "I (future particle) go (to) China")
b1. 你 会不会 去 中国? nǐ huì bù huì qù zhōngguó ("Will you go (to) China?", literally "You will-not-will go (to) China?", not "You will go-not-go (to) China?")
Of course, it's always possible to use the standard interrogative form using the question particle 吗 ma:
b2. 你 会 去 中国 吗? nǐ huì qù zhōngguó ma? ("Will you go (to) China?", literally "You will go (to) China (question particle)")
As a final dad joke, since "pecked" is an adjective, perhaps a man could say:
"wǒ hěn pecked"
No comments:
Post a Comment