Chinglish

Every few weeks one of my friends sends me something from this website

they are funny and sometimes when I walk around, I will see a sign that makes me laugh and take a picture of it. I lost my favorite, which was a reminder to not squat, but sit, on the toilet seat.

My students don't ask what Chinglish is, and if they did I don't know if it would be polite for me to say "How you speak English"
but talking with them I realized that they do not view their English as Chinglish. I guess I don't view my Chinese in this light either, but it made me think their are a few kinds of Chinglish.

1. How the Chinese speak English

This is the one I think of when I hear the word, and teaching I spend most of my day hearing and correcting it. It is mostly an exact translation of how they speak Chinese and therefore I find it pretty helpful in learning their language, because it allows me to see how they form sentences, how they get around using prepositions, as well as their word choice.

2. My Chinese

I guess this would be the opposite of their english. But I guess the Chinese don't consider this Chinglish because it would entail consider their english as such. Also their is the issue that native English speaking foreigners aren't the only foreigners here, so can it still be Chinglish if I am from Germany and speaking Chinese.

3. Translation of Chinese Idioms

Whenever my middle school students would say one, everyone in the class would laugh and say "Chinglish", so I assume this is what they believe to be Chinglish. Chinese people of all ages seem to laugh, especially when I say them.

ie. 我给你一些色， 看看 （wo gei ni yi xie se, kankan)
Chinglish: I'll give you some color, see see
meaning: I'll beat you up, I'll hit you

笨蛋（ben dan)
Chinglish: stupid egg
Meaning: you are stupid

This seems a lot like the first category , and I guess you could argue that all my categories could be considered part of the first category because they are things Chinese people say in English. The difference to me is a chinese person would only say these things to other chinese, not a foreigner.
In class they might mess up and say "You very stupid" instead of saying "You are stupid" because of they don't use linking verbs in chinese, but they would never say "you are a stupid egg".

4. Simple English expressions

Some english words are simple, common, and thus have become part of everyday Chinese speech, such as OK, Hello, and Bye Bye.
It seems like it is the cool think to do now in Shanghai to say "Bye Bye" instead of "zai Jian" (the chinese for the same thing)

4a. often the english in the Chinese will be combined, especially by cab drivers. They will say OK but add 吗 (ma) at the end to make it a question. or add 了 (le). I love saying "Bye Bye le" when saying goodbye to chinese people.

4b. When you only know one word in English, "Hello" repeated as many times as you need, means anything you want it to mean
ie. "Hello"
"Look at what I am selling"
"Buy what I am selling"
"Give me money because you are foreign"
"Aren't you tired of this whole Brett Favre fiasco?"
" Why are you walking away"


5. English words translated into Chinese

words like hamburger, didn't exist in China, before McDonalds set up shop here. So they had to create a word for it. Chinese people can not say Hamburger because they think that the actual word is their translation "hambaobao"

6. Words to which their are no translation yet.

There are so many new words entering the chinese language as they become more globalized that many 1 character words have become 2 characters so they can be differentiated, because there are only so many sounds in the language. Sometimes they don't even bother giving a word a translation or transliteration.

I can't think of an example of the top of my head, but Chinese people will be talking in chinese and all of a sudden they will slip in an English word. It will surprise me and I will look at them and they will laugh and say in chinese "the foreigner is trying to understand us"