skylee Posted October 30, 2009 at 04:51 PM Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 at 04:51 PM I took this picture on a flight of the Qatar Airways. As you can see it was an in-flight entertainment magazine and at the bottom of the page you can see the note "MAN 官話". I would not be surprised if they used 華語 or 漢語 or 普通話. But 官話? It is not really wrong but it is quite unusual IMO.BTW there were many many chinese flight attendants on Qatar Airways' flights. All young and pretty with perfect fair skin and spoke very good English. Actually they spoke nothing but English even though the departure point was Hong Kong. One exception - when a girl had to stop a Chinese passenger from standing up during landing and when telling him "please sit down" proved to be useless, she shouted "請坐下". But the guy simply ignored her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jiangping Posted October 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 at 05:13 PM Maybe they just put "Mandarin" into a dictionary and it came up with官話? I *think* that is the traditional English translation of it. What makes it even odder is that they have "CHS 中文" on the list too!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted October 30, 2009 at 08:25 PM Report Share Posted October 30, 2009 at 08:25 PM I was wondering why they had one for "Canadian", until I could make out the "粵語" next to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daan Posted October 31, 2009 at 03:50 AM Report Share Posted October 31, 2009 at 03:50 AM Can't help but wonder why on earth they would have subtitles in Mandarin, Cantonese and 中文 to boot. Did you try them out, skylee? If so, what was the difference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted October 31, 2009 at 11:40 AM Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2009 at 11:40 AM ah I think the notes are for both the languages spoken in the flims and their subtitles. I would think that for a Hong Kong film the language would be CAN and the subtitles would be CHS in the magazine. And for a mainland film the language would be MAN and the subtitles would be CHS. I didn't really pay any attention to the denotation of the films I watched (a Wong Kar-wai film in Cantonese with Chinese subtitles, "The Hurt Locker", a very good film IMO, in English with no subtitles and a French film with English subtitles). Personally I am very comfortable with calling written Chinese 中文. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daan Posted November 1, 2009 at 12:50 PM Report Share Posted November 1, 2009 at 12:50 PM Oh, of course. Those notes are for both the language spoken in the movie and the subtitles, not only for the subtitles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted November 3, 2009 at 01:13 AM Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 at 01:13 AM 官話 is the term used in linguistics to refer to Mandarin (Standard Mandarin and other Mandarin dialects). There's another competing term, 北方話, and the differences and similarities of these two terms were discussed at length in another thread a while back. Maybe it's a PC issue to avoid to use either 普通話 or 國語? The terms 漢語 and 中文 might potentially be misleading since they can be construed to refer to Sinitic languages in general, not just Mandarin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted November 3, 2009 at 12:15 PM Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 at 12:15 PM Not everyone is a linguist. I think 華語 is a fairly neutral term (in a very layman's point of view), though I don't particularly like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted November 3, 2009 at 05:02 PM Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 at 05:02 PM What do you mean? Look we're speculating about the thought process of the people writing the programme schedule, I don't know what that's gotta do with that. Anyway, it's clear 官話 is a fairly specialist term, but it could be an indication that somebody wanted to be on the safe side and consulted a bunch of dictionaries and reference books before choosing the most neutral term or whatever. Another theory would be that it was an instance of exhibiting Cantonese pride, but your reaction seems to discount that. Now, as far as 華語 goes, it seems to be used often in context of foreigners learning Chinese and also in SEA, maybe that was part of it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muyongshi Posted November 3, 2009 at 11:36 PM Report Share Posted November 3, 2009 at 11:36 PM I think it was probably an error/mistake. Specifically because 官话 is a linguistic word referring to much more than what we call "mandarin" as we would think of it for a movie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted November 4, 2009 at 09:22 AM Report Share Posted November 4, 2009 at 09:22 AM I agree, muyongshi. Looking things up doesn't preclude one from making mistakes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted March 8, 2010 at 02:32 PM Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2010 at 02:32 PM I have just found out that the Hurt Locker got the Best Picture Oscar. I said in #5 above it was a very good film. I plan to see it again later. If you have not seen it yet you might want to now. I remember how surprised I was when Guy Pearce appeared, and then was killed. And then Ralph Fiennes appeared, but just briefly, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted March 8, 2010 at 02:40 PM Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2010 at 02:40 PM Ah this is the thread where "Cantonese pride" was mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted October 7, 2010 at 04:36 AM Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2010 at 04:36 AM I have received an email from a hotel in Beijing inviting me to complete a customer survey. The email and the survey are in English but they offer versions in different languages. One of them is “Chinese Simplified” and the Chinese description of this version is “中文”. Another version is “Chinese (Trad big 5)". And the Chinese description of this version is “古文 / 文言文”. :blink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creamyhorror Posted October 7, 2010 at 11:25 AM Report Share Posted October 7, 2010 at 11:25 AM Haha, it would be cool if they actually made a wenyan version of the survey. But of course they haven't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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