Moo-ha Blog

hmm…i think my english skills are starting to
suck real bad.  just the other day, i noticed myself talking in
sentences without or’s,  the’s, are’s…etc.  it’s
getting pretty serious…i think its cuz i hang around a lot of people
who are chinese and speak broken english.  but i thought about it more and  i
realized that i think im starting to speak
chinglish.  that’s right, it’s a language all by itself.
since there’s so many chinese people in california, i think its
important to learn how to speak some basic chinglish.

lesson 1:

when u talk chinglish to people on AIM, u have to end all sentences
with an "oh", "lah" (or "loh"), "ah", "bah" or a "ma".  for
example:

michelle.: what are u doing lah?
me: just working on my
xanga site oh…
michelle: wow…add oil add oil loh!

lesson 2:

so yeah, that brings up another thing…chinglish phrases.  u
can’t speak chinglish unless u know how to respond properly to
chinglish phrases like add oil.  add oil is an encouragement…like "let’s go!" or "cheer!"  its kinda like stepping
on the gas petal of your car…u know, like adding "oil" to the engine
so it goes faster.  some people call it "add gas"…but that
just sounds sorta wrong in english (sounds like "passing gas" or something)

there’s also phrases like "aiya" which is like the sound of a "sigh" in
english.  u use it to express frustration or regret.  throw
in a ma or a loh and u got a perfectly chinglish conversation.

me: why did u log off ah?
michelle: aiya, my computer crash again ma…
me: can’t be bah? sorry to hear that loh…

lesson 3:

ok so now that u got the idea of basic phrases, u gotta learn to use
more sophisticated ones.  one time, my sister-in-law told me "dont
small look him loh…".  i kept thinkin…what the heck are u talking bout?
small look??  is she telling me…don’t make eye contact or
i should stop squinting at him?  then i realized small-look means
"underestimate" in chinese when u translate it word for word…so it
actually kinda makes sense in a weird way.

lesson 4:

last but not least…if u wanna carry a conversation in chinglish,
the most important thing to do is to remove all prepositions from your
sentences and add extra "-s’es", "-ed’s" and "-ing’s" whenever possible.  for example:

me: i bringed playstation school
tomorrow.
eric:  i going kicks u butt streetfighter 2.
me: no way bah! i
play game many hour yesterday. i very good.
michelle: add gas! add gas
loh!
me: whats smelled?… ERIC!!?!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 9:35 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.