learning chinese with jay chou

There is only ever one chinese song which I know and that is Tong Hua by Guang Liang. Of course I know many other songs but this is the only song which lyrics I can remember from beginning till end. That is, in han yu pin yin version. It was during this period where everyone was crazy about this song and Sunway Pyramid was playing it day to night at the skating ring. Thanks to my friends who patiently taught me word by word and even explained the meaning in detail, I could sing along when we went to Red Box.


Anyhow, many years have passed and I was sick of Tong Hua and therefore have decided to sing something else. One day before we went to Red Box, my colleague, who is also an avid Jay Chou fan, asked me to choose a chinese song from his very extensive song collection and even offered to do a duet to cover up my supposed terrible singing (and he is supposedly very Jay). I couldn't read chinese characters ma, so I chose Shan Hu Hai because the "shan" looked like the "shan" in my name. "shan hu" meant coral while "hai" meant sea and so basically it meant Coral Sea.


Wah piang. Such a difficult song to begin with. I sang just reading from the pin yin version which I printed and vowed to learn it by heart to fully appreciate the song. Anyways, I found a webby which has the pin yin of the song and also the meaning of the song. I agree that it is one effective way to learn chinese or mandarin in particular. When you know the meaning of the song, you will appreciate it better and it will also be easier to remember the words, the character and the pronounciation. Anyways, here's a sample:





See what I mean when I said difficult song? I didn't know it was a sad song until I read the translation. See? No appreciation. Anyways, I wanted to choose another song which was not so sad and decided to click on "hei se you muo" which meant Black Humour. Aiya. Also another sad song. Luckily I also have Wang Lee Hom with "Wei Yi" meaning Only One. Lee Hom!! This one, I dunno sad or not but OK lah.

In Wei Yi, to say "it is not easy", instead of "bu rong yi", he sang "tan he rong yi". So we learned something new today!


Anyways, my interest in language have expanded a little to Korean! I learned how to introduce myself from my very Korean-waved trainee, Jonjon.

Anyong aseyo! Yvonne im nida. Manaso pang kap sim ni da!

which meant:

Hi! My name is Yvonne. Nice to meet you.


You just need to replace my name with yours and you are good to go. I also have one trainee from Korea (who was impressed with how I intro-ed myself!:) and she even taught me how to write my name.



Well, they don't really pronounce "v" in Korean and so my name sounding like ee-von is written as yi bon. I remember in college, I have a Korean friend, Brown, who called me yibong throughout the whole degree program and I actually thought he was making fun of me. Another friend, Owen, from China will call me "yi wen". No, scratch that. He called me chou yi wen. Something that's not so good but that's how he call everyone unless he needs their help. Haha! Chou this, chou that. Gosh.


Anyhow, I need to also brush up on my French. There will be some french trainees coming soon and I think it will be good to practice with them.

Btw, I saw this song CD for sale in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and it features this french song which I can sing! Les Champs-Elysees. My classmates will remember this song because we had to sing this song as one of our oral test.

Je me baladais sur l'avenue, le coeur ouvert.... remember?!


aiya... those were the days...