#chineselanguages — Public Fediverse posts

Boiling #limes in a wok.
Mom & me, talking in #Teochew.

Translation:

Me: Mom is boiling limes to make salted lime preserves. We have to boil them until..

Mom: ...Til they're a bit yellow.

Me: Yes, yellow colour. Right now, they're very green. You can see one of them has turned yellow, turned yellow.

Mom: Just a little bit and they're almost done.

Me: Around how many minutes?

Mom: Few minutes. 5 minutes.

Me: OK. 5 minutes & then take them out.

Mom: Umhm, take out.

Me: And then did you say boil twice?!

Mom: No, I still have this other batch. I have two batches.

Me: Ah, OK.

#AsianMastodon #fermentation #FoodPreservation #TraditionalPreserves #ChineseFermenting #Citrus #AsianFoodPreservation #Gaginang #Linguistics #ChineseLanguages #AsianLanguages #GlobalSouth #languages #MyFirstLanguage

Speaking in #Teochew about having #coffee & #donuts & frying eggs in a bit because I like/need big filling #breakfast foods to power me up for a good active start to the day.

Translation:

I haven't had coffee for awhile. Morning, now, I'm going to have one cup of coffee. My Mom bought donuts. Little small ones. I'll probably eat maybe 3 or 4 donuts and have a cup of coffee. I need to fry up some eggs. I like eating a lot in the morning.

#AsianMastodon #Gaginang #Chinese #Languages #Linguistics #AsianDiaspora #TootSEA #SouthEastAsian #MyFirstLanguage #AsianLanguages #ChineseLanguages #GlobalSouth #LanguageIsCulturalHeritage

what on earth is going on in this sentence? i might try to work this out for myself later, just thinking aloud for now…

"Hong Wei Xian, a/k/a "Harry Zan," 32, and Li Li, a/k/a "Lea Li," 33, both from the People's Republic of China (PRC)" from https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/2-chinese-nationals-charged-illegally-attempting-export-military-satellite-components

"a/k/a" is bizarre, but not very interesting, the names are more interesting.

I would guess that the first names listed are the standard transcriptions of their names in #Pinyin from Simplified Chinese?

But why is it different in their English names?

Harry and Lea make sense, the closest common English name … but Zan is weird?

#Taiwan uses a different system to Pinyin … but would the USA refer to them as being from the PRC? and if they were a Taiwanese spy working for the PRC to steel microchip making secrets, they'd be in Taiwan?

Maybe Hong Kong or Macau ?

Maybe judder easier to spell for Americans? but then a Pinyin X would be an S or Sh if you wrote it more phonetically?

Maybe a spy alias that's not even supposed to be the same name?

cc other mes @[email protected] @[email protected]

#USA #PRC #HongKong #Macau #ChineseLanguages #ChineseNames #SimplifiedChinese #TraditionalChinese #Mandarin #Cantonese #HongWeiXian #XianHongWei #HarryZan #LiLi #LeaLi