Ever wonder what a Chinese chicken sounds like, or what to do when someone tells you they are one? In today's lesson Brendan, David and Echo take to the studio and talk about Chinese horoscopes. You may not believe in the Chinese zodiac, but you'll need to know how it works if you're ever going to navigate the animal barnyard that is the dating scene in China. If only because when you meet someone special here you can be sure they're going to be thinking about it.This podcast is part language lesson and part simple proof of an impressive disconnect between urban China and the natural world. If you don't know your own sign, we've posted more information on the Chinese zodiac in the comments section below. Feel free to write us at echo@popupchinese.com with any questions about your own star sign. We admit to being suckers for romantic gossip.
Absolute Beginners
said on December 14, 2009
Here is a link you can use to figure out your Chinese zodiac sign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology.
jim.veseley
said on December 15, 2009
Excellent lesson. My wife was surprised to hear that I am apparently a monkey 猴子 (hóuzi). She was not terribly pleased with her own sign. I will suggest another trip to China once the fury has worn off.
Echo
said on December 15, 2009
@jim,
My parents and I are the first three animals of Chinese zodiac. My mother is 老鼠（lao3shu3）. My father is 牛（niu2）. And as you all know, I am 老虎（lao3hu3）.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Xiao Hu
said on December 15, 2009
@Echo,
你也是属虎的吗？我觉得 1986 年的老虎们很特别！另外我觉得80后的确是个很潜力的年代人。
You're also a Tiger? I think the 1986 tiger's are very special! Additionally, I think the 80's generation is a generation with a great deal of potential.
Xiao Hu
said on December 15, 2009
I think the Chinese chicken sounds a lot more like a real 鸡, I'm all for enforcing the imperialist chicken noise on the unsuspecting masses! 咕咕！
Echo
said on December 15, 2009
@Xiao Hu,
谢谢你，我好开心呀 :) 也替Chinese chicken们谢谢你对它们的评价。咕咕！
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Gail天堂的声音
said on December 16, 2009
@Xiao Hu,
咕咕咕，太高兴了！我们这些Chinese chicken 对你的评价表示感谢！
trevelyan
said on December 16, 2009
Xiao Hu, Echo, Gail and crew:We just received an email from Andrew in Colorado containing some pretty incontrovertible evidence that chickens don't coo. I am delighted to be able to share this with you all. The name of the original file is "Actual Chicken", which pretty much says it all:http://popupchinese.com/data/audio/actual_chicken.mp3Thanks a lot Andrew! : )
Xiao Hu
said on December 16, 2009
@Gail和Echo，
我就是觉得中国式的公鸡比较逼真。我听着这们课一听“咕咕”的声音就觉得听起来跟“鸡”的声音一样一样的。何况我从来没有想我们西方这边的“鸡”声音是逼真的。
Bok, bok, bok 这个声音到底是啥玩意儿呢？
Echo
said on December 16, 2009
@Xiao Hu,
哎呀，还是小虎说话公道！本来就是嘛，鸡怎么会“吧、吧”地叫呢。我觉得外国的鸡很有必要来泡泡中文学习一下普通话 :)
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Gail天堂的声音
said on December 16, 2009
@Xiao Hu,
我总是觉得bok,bok是鸭子的声音。。中国人说鸭子的声音说“嘎嘎”或者“呱呱”。。。
mikejn1
said on December 16, 2009
Hi Echo (and Brendan)
你好
Seems like we're all disconnected from nature!?
But what is this 'popupfix' lesson, an utterly boring version of beginners' 'what sign are you'. All the controversy and entertainment taken out.
我属豭
jiā is that right?
I'm studying a beginners' Chinese course with the Open University in UK, Edinburgh, in fact. i work for OU as well, 我是 老师
it's called 第一步
Your site is brilliant, the podcasts, the best.
Mike
Xiao Hu
said on December 17, 2009
@Gail，
我不觉得 bok, bok 和鸭子的声音很像，我却是觉得“呱呱”和“嘎嘎”和鸭子的声音一模一样！
Xiao Hu
said on December 17, 2009
@Travelyan， LOL! The most awesome thing I've seen in a long time is, the file name, "actual_chicken.mp3" That's worthy of a spot in the internet hall of fame!
Echo
said on December 17, 2009
@Mike,
Welcome to the site! 欢迎你！
Thanks so much for your kind words about the site :)
豭 is not frequently used in the modern time. You can say 我属猪 instead.
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
LanZi
said on December 17, 2009
In my hometown Guangdong, people use "gok gok gok gok" to imitate chicken sounds.
Gail天堂的声音
said on December 18, 2009
@mikejn1，
oh, 你属猪啊？when you told us you are a豭, I really thought it belongs to a totally different zodiac system...hehe, we just use the simplist words like 老鼠,牛，羊，狗 etc, your character is too complicated...
mikejn1
said on December 22, 2009
谢谢 Gail,
我属亥， 'pig' 那是对吗？
Wikipedia said 'boar' so I looked that up.
圣蛋快乐 I still get some tones wrong - happy laying eggs! shēngdàn kuàilè
梦
LanZi
said on December 22, 2009
@mikejn1
This is the extremely picky Mandarin corrector. Sorry to interrupt your conversation with Gail. "Is that correct" is translated as either "那是对的吗" or "那对吗" instead of "那是对吗", because "是...的" is a set structure. For instance, you could say "is that big" as "那大吗" or "那是大的吗", but no "那是大吗", unless you were referring "big （大）" to a noun, the character "大", since “那是”can be followed by a noun, like 那是女人吗 (is that a woman)?
剩蛋快乐！--Happy being the left egg! Both 圣&诞 or 剩&蛋 are fourth tones.
Brendan
said on December 23, 2009
@mikejn1 -- Hey, nice use of 亥 there. Most of the time people just say 猪 -- 亥 is really more calendrical; it tends not really to get used outside of discussions of the ancient calendrical cycle. It's good to know, though, because it shows up in a lot of characters -- like 应该的该 and 孩子的孩 -- as a sound-clue.
The 是...的 construction is kind of tricky if you're not used to it. One thing that's always helped me is thinking of 是 as an equals sign, rather than as the English verb "to be." It's pretty counterintuitive at first, but with time and practice it'll become second nature.
祝大家宽扎节快乐! (Nobody ever wishes anyone a 'Happy Kwanzaa' in Chinese; I figured I might as well be the first.)
Xiao Hu
said on January 10, 2010
我好像无法不闹了个轰动！呵呵，我讲出自己的意见就引起了争论！唉！其实连有了确凿的证据我都坚持自己的意见。中国的鸡声比西方的鸡声逼真！
Echo
said on January 10, 2010
@Xiao Hu,我是坚持和你在一条战线的！力挺你啊！--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
LanZi
said on January 11, 2010
@Xiao Hu
你的确很会“引起“轰动，我们不说“闹了个”轰动哦，呵呵。
Xiao Hu
said on January 12, 2010
@Lanzi “闹”和“轰动”不能搭配在一起吗？是吗？我确定在词典里看过这个结构。
LanZi
said on January 12, 2010
@Xiao Hu你懂得好多啊！！真被你问倒了。1）“闹轰动”是可以的，只是比较少见，所以听起来别扭。我查了之后觉得分开用，或者用被动的比较多。比如，“这事情被老百姓给闹轰动了。”比如，“这件事闹得可轰动了。”2）“闹了个”之后不接“轰动”，一般接不好的事情。比如，“闹了个笑话”，“闹了个国际玩笑”，“闹了个大乌龙”。3）“轰动”一般的量词是“一阵”，“引起轰动”或者“引起一阵轰动”。很多新闻标题就是“（什么什么）引轰动”。比如，“林志玲亲临泡泡中文引轰动”，或者，“梁朝伟访问泡泡中文，引起女同事一阵轰动。”
jaboman2k
said on March 8, 2010
Hey people! Congrats for that good job you're doing here. Today I happened to find this site and I mean to use while I'm learning chinese.
Thank you!!!
Javier from Spain
Echo
said on March 8, 2010
@Javier,
Thank you for your kind words about the site :) Welcome to the site! 欢迎你！
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
kajinasmail
said on April 3, 2010
this is quite amazing the webpage!somebody really does a good job, thanks to all of you behind this. your exercises, hsk list, reading material and translation, everything "under one roof". Thnks for doing this. Really helpful.
Karo.
Echo
said on April 4, 2010
@Karo,
谢谢！
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
ayukuufan
said on April 12, 2010
I'm trying to learn Chinese, and I'm currently taking French... I'm finding Chinese difficult to remember because it's so different! But I love the language, and this website is the greatest! Thank you so much! :)
Also, is there a site I can find information on zodiac signs, like personalities and such?
Or can you just let me know what the Dog zodiac suggests? (personality, etc.)
Thank you again. :)
sanjeev.sapkota
said on July 14, 2010
你好朋有们， 你们好吗 ？Hi friends, how are you ? I've been in China for a while working on Web technology and softwares in general. I have a quite a good grasp of chinese communication but lately, I had been thinking of appearing for HSK beginners test. Though I haven't yet looked into it seriously, it might actually be good for me. What do you think ?And i am trying to familiarise myself with characters by typing first. As it allows me to type in the pinyin and lets me select the characters, that basically allows me a chance to recognise similar tone characters esp if I pick the wrong ones. Is this a good way of getting into writing ? Once i recognise a character it would be easier to start writing them, not saying that its easy whatsoever but still rather than jumping into writing without being able to recognise. I would love to hear what you guys have to say about it.
trevelyan
said on July 16, 2010
@sanjeev.sapkota,My problems learning Chinese sound like the exact opposite of yours. When I started studying mandarin I was enrolled at the University of Toronto. We didn't have much exposure to the spoken language, but what we could do was pour over texts and so that is what we did. It wasn't a very effective way of learning to speak, but it definitely taught us how to read and write.Lessons learned? Writing is actually pretty easy once you internalize the basic rules governing stroke order. If you're not clear about those, we've put together a lesson series with our Chinese writing pad that covers how to write Chinese characters. If you have an iPhone, we've also got a free Chinese iPhone app that does basically the same thing, and includes a lot of characters you can practice on. Once you know the basic rules it becomes trivial to learn new characters. The challenge is less actually drawing the strokes and more remembering exactly which components are found in the less frequent characters.I use pinyin-based input methods much more than writing by hand these days and definitely find myself getting stuck trying to remember exactly how to write less frequent characters. The issue is that recognizing a character from a list is a different cognitive challenge that remembering how to write it without any reference. That said, there are fewer and fewer situations where you will need to write by hand, and even Chinese people have these problems. Cellphones with pinyin-based IMEs also make for a pretty handy reference guides on the odd occasion you'll forget.So... I'd suggest learning the basic rules for how to write characters and practicing when you get the chance. As long as you're using Chinese every day you'll keep getting better at it.Good luck!--david
chadyanpitre
said on October 23, 2010
To all,
First of all, this was really hilarious, esp. the actor's "forced" chicken imitation in the second take.
This lesson touches base on something I'd been meaning to write an article about in my early days in China while teaching English. As the producers of the show probably all know, and many learners will discover, different languages and cultures use different sounds for the SAME animals.
It would be totally funny (and totally unscientific!) to compare side by side the human attempt to imitate animal sounds in a few languages, along with a "vote for the best" heh. Just sayin'.
Chad
trevelyan
said on October 23, 2010
@chad,
I think we can also all agree that the "Western chicken" is the objectively correct one. Except for Echo. :)
--dave
Xiao Hu
said on October 23, 2010
@David,
Okay, after a long period of introspection and soul searching, I've come to the conclusion that the red, white and blue chicken noise is irrefutably the authentic chicken one, and the red (方言)chicken is nothing but an abomination of nature...不!!!
(我又得提一个问题，bok bok 到底是什么意思？)
;)
trevelyan
said on October 23, 2010
Xiao Hu, 你没养过一只猫呢？所有的动物们都非常好了解。bok bok 的意思应该是说 "给饭，给饭，快一点儿给饭！"
Xiao Hu
said on October 24, 2010
@Trevelyan, 为了了解"gu gu" 的意思我研究网络的很多资源,通过详尽的研究我发现中国鸡说 Gu Gu, 意思是,"吃饱了, 吃饱了, 这里的经济好所以吃饱了".
chadyanpitre
said on October 25, 2010
Totally, the Chinese chicken is whacked. But I know of a few western anglo animal sounds that are just as dumb.
oink oink? wtf? that sounds NOTHING like a pig.
many others...
Xiao Hu
said on October 26, 2010
chadyanpitre,
I have to agree with you that there are many inauthentic animal sounds in the English language, oink oink, woof woof, caw caw, bah bah, ribbit ribbit, quack quack, all quite inauthentic in my book.
But the magnum opus of 乱七八糟的拟声词 (onomatopeia)?
ROAR!
How inauthentic is that?
chadyanpitre
said on October 26, 2010
@Xiao Hu,
Well, woof woof and quack quack are not TOO bad. I'd say "neigh" for a horse is about as off as it gets, but then again, how do you spell the sounds that a horse makes? Inevitably, most languages will fail trying to copy the phonetic of an animal's call...
kay_kay1424
said on July 10, 2012
我属公鸡^^
amber
said on July 10, 2012
@kay_kay1424,说属鸡就好了，咱们这儿的属相不分公鸡母鸡的～^^--Amberamber@popupchinese.com
kay_kay1424
said on July 10, 2012
啊，我懂了。^^
xiaozhu
said on July 26, 2012
So I'm a tiger, my fiance is a pig... And he's Chinese so his family take this quite seriously. So the question is, is our marriage doomed?!
amber
said on July 26, 2012
@xiaozhu,I think the most important thing is not how his family take it. Whether a marriage is doomed or not is not up to sign right? Fighting tiger! --Amberamber@popupchinese.com
craigrut
said on July 26, 2012
@xiaozhuJust have some grand kids and they'll stop worrying so much :). Nothing makes parents happier than grand kids hahaha.Craig
xiaozhu
said on July 26, 2012
Haha, his parents like me despite the non-Chineseness! And the tigerness. I think there is going to be some consultation of the oracle to determine the best date of the wedding, but as long as that's sorted I'm sure all will be well!
amber
said on July 27, 2012
@xiaozhu,Great! No problem now! Wedding ceremony can be exhausted, fighting!--Amberamber@popupchinese.com
lauracdaniell
said on April 26, 2016
Echo, Should I noticed that Wikipedia lists Chicken also as "Phoenix". Well, I am Chicken but would rather say I'm Phoenix, especially since I live in Phoenix, AZ! Can you fill me in?
lauracdaniell
said on April 26, 2016
Echo, I noticed that Wikipedia lists Chicken also as "Phoenix". Well, I am Chicken but would rather say I'm Phoenix, especially since I live in Phoenix, AZ! Can you fill me in?
georgebiermann
said on December 9, 2017
Recently discovered your website. I love it! Maybe chickens in China also have their own regional dialects? (Just a thought)
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