#0 so, i started learning mandarin.

finally. after being obsessed with the linguistics around me for more than a year already. — by mati ★... or, by 瑪琦¹ ? —

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i'm finally learning mandarin. i was already interested in the linguistics of mandarin for basically a year already (if not more), and i've even written a few articles about it, like mandarin at the karaoke and the talking on paper series, although that last one also involves korean and japanese. but for people like me, being interested in the linguistics of a language doesn't have much to do with actually learning to speak it. i've been interested in the linguistics of languages from tagalog to finnish to korean to dutch, yet i've never tried to learn to speak any of those. but today (or actually, two days ago), i decided to take the next step when it comes to mandarin specifically.

you see, i was already thinking of picking up mandarin to actually learn it for a few months already. i was undecided between it, korean, and spanish, and i kind of wanted to learn something new. and out of those three, i've been more obsessed over the linguistics of mandarin than the other two, so it seemed like the natural choice? but what actually made me choose mandarin was that over the last few days, i asked the help of my twitter mutuals to choose a nice transcription into chinese for my name.

making up a name for yourself

most foreign students of mandarin come up with chinese names for themselves. i decided to take a different approach: i kept my name, in chinese i am still mati. but you still have to decide how to transcribe your name, if you want to keep it. you have to adapt your name to mandarin's phonology (as in any other language), but since mandarin is written with a logography, you have the additional fun of choosing which characters to write your name with.

i will probably make a separate entry about how i chose my chinese name, but it's 葉瑪琦 yè mǎqí. the last name, 葉 — which actually comes first because chinese names are "the other way around" — wasn't chosen based on my real last name or anything that is in my actual name; it's actually based off the second character of the japanese word for 'word', 言葉 kotoba. it's kind of fitting since i'm a linguistics person who likes words and everything about them, but it's also not that on the nose (葉 itself means 'leaf').

the first name is more straightforward: 瑪琦 mǎqí is clearly a transcription of mati [ˈmat͡ʃi]. but it doesn't look like a thoughtless transcription (that would be either 馬齊 or 瑪齊, both also pronounced mǎqí). this is because i actually chose the characters myself! the first one, 瑪 , is meaningless on its own, but it's used in transcription with slight feminine connotations, besides being the first character of the word 瑪瑙 mǎnǎo 'agate'. the second one, 琦 , is used in actual chinese names (unlike 瑪 , which has transcription vibes). it also has a feminine vibe to it, but there are also (less often) names of men with it. both characters being technically neutral but leaning feminine is something that i feels aligns very well with my gender / gender expression, so 瑪琦 mǎqí really is the perfect fit! most importantly, it's two syllables and has chinese name vibes, even if it's clearly the name of a foreigner — this allowed me to add a chinese last name to it.

trying to pronounce tones

i've already known the segmental phonology (the vowels and consonants) of mandarin for a few months. it's not that hard, although some things might be difficult for someone who isn't as linguisticky as me (like the distinction between the sh · zh · ch and x · j · q series, or the front rounded vowel ü and the -e final). however, i had never tried my hand at pronouncing the tones correctly. i had read a little about the theory of the tones, like how tone 3 (written ǎ, with a haček) isn't usually a falling-rising tone but actually a low tone (+ optional creaky voice), but i had never tried actually pronouncing them. but, now that i'm learning mandarin, i have to know how to pronounce tones.

i started by watching some youtube videos that teach how to pronounce the tones in isolation. i think i kind of got the hang of that already, as it isn't that hard (except for the "full" isolated third ǎ tone, which isn't that easy. the "half" third tone is easier, because it's just low and creaky-voiced). i'll probably move to learning how to pronounce tones inside 2+ syllable words, which is more of a challenge than it looks, because for some combinations you're inclined to let the tone of one syllable "color" the tone of the next one, and the wrong tone comes out. i'm at least more or less able to pronounce my own name 瑪琦 mǎqí, but i end up turning it into *mǎqī half of the time (and one of my friends, rin, told me that the ǎ + á combination is the one they find the hardest, so yeah...)

i will be mentioning my progress with the tones of mandarin in the next entry, #1, and the following ones, until i feel comfortable pronouncing tones inside sentences. i don't think this is going to be terribly hard, but it does require some practice.

notes

1 should i use traditional or simplified for this series? i'm personally okay with either, as i am somewhat familiar with both character sets (traditional is more familiar to me because japanese shinjitai is more similar to traditional than to simplified). i also plan to be familiar with both character sets as i go about learning mandarin.

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Pub: 13 Apr 2024 04:41 UTC
Edit: 13 Apr 2024 21:15 UTC
Views: 246