Say What? A Quick Primer on Chinese Tones and Dialects

There is no way around it: Chinese is hard. There really is no substitute for learning Chinese than moving to China and completely immersing yourself. Still, if you regularly do business with China, it is good to at least know some of the basics of the language and appreciate why it can be so darn hard to master.

The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese

First of all, there are many different dialects and versions of the spoken Chinese language. A common misperception by foreigners is that the dialects are much like variations in accents, such as the difference between a Michigander’s accent and an Alabaman’s. The dialect differences in China are much, much more severe than this. Practically each province, even down to each local city or village, has a different local dialect. Typically, these dialects are unintelligible from one another. For example, someone from Hunan province would not be able to understand someone speaking in the local Sichuan dialect of Chinese.

Luckily, the playing field has been leveled a bit due to the pervasiveness of Mandarin Chinese, which is known as the “common Chinese language,” and is the official language of Mainland China. Another widely spoken “version,” also often referred to as a “dialect,” is Cantonese. It is mostly spoken in the southern part of China, mainly in Guangdong province and places like Hong Kong. Historically, many Chinese that immigrated to America were from Canton, and so many Chinese speakers in the United States come from a Cantonese background.*

As the official language, Mandarin boasts close to 1 billion native speakers. In my experience, native Cantonese speakers are usually also able to understand and speak Mandarin, as opposed to the other way around. I personally learned to speak Mandarin, as do most people that study Chinese. Generally, when a someone says “I am learning Chinese,” they almost always are referring to Mandarin.

How Tones Make You Sound Foreign in China

The trickiest thing about Chinese is the tones. Tones are key to attaching specific meanings to sounds in the Chinese language. The Cantonese dialect operates on nine different tones, whereas Mandarin only has five. The most frustrating problem for English speakers trying communicate in Chinese is that often they can remember and say a word phonetically correctly, but if the tone is wrong, their message might not get across.

I’m not going to go into how to master the tones too much as there are plenty of tutorials online that give you the basics, such as on ChinesePod. If you don’t have any plan to try to speak Chinese fluently, you don’t have to worry about it too much as people can understand your simple phrases. But what you should at least know is that pronouncing these words with the wrong tones is similar to when you hear a non-native English speaker speaking English with the wrong pronunciation. I.e., saying “ni hao,” the Chinese word for “hello,” with the wrong tones is like when you hear someone say “Sank You” as opposed to “Thank you.” You understand the meaning, but you know it sounds funny.

Understanding You Sound Foreign is a Good Thing!

Surprise, surprise, this works both ways! You sound foreign in China! A humbling reality, no doubt, but once you admit and understand it it can be an enormous source of personal growth. I believe accepting this reality makes it easier for you to do business in China as you can better understand and empathize with your Chinese counterparts. Chinese people truly value people with humble attitudes, and admitting you sound foreign sure helps the humble part of your persona come out. Additionally, back at home in America, it will make you more sympathetic to immigrants and other foreigners that struggle to speak English correctly.

Sank You For Reading! Now, go and embrace the foreigner in you by learning a few Chinese phrases and dare to use them wrong!

*I edited this from a previous version of this article, in which I referred to Mandarin as an “overarching dialect.” That is not really true, as Mandarin is the common Chinese language. Other versions, like Sichuanese, Hunanese, etc., are by definition “dialects of Mandarin.” Cantonese is a bit trickier because it is so widely spoken again and has many more tones than Mandarin Chinese, though it is most often referred to as a “widely spoken dialect.”

Understanding China’s Work Holiday Schedule

September 16, 2015

One thing that often trips up business travelers to China is the unique Chinesecalendar-20clip-20art-calendar holiday schedule. It has not been unheard of for Westerners arriving to plan rapid-fire meetings only to learn they accidentally overlapped their trip with a 4-day holiday that “came out of nowhere.”

Never fear! Here are some useful tips for you to understand and plan around the Chinese work holiday schedule like a pro.

  1. The Official 2015 Chinese Public Holiday Calendar

Thanks to Baidu.com, here is the official 2015 public holiday calendar in China. (The original post is in Chinese, I translated to English. Click this link for the Chinese version.)

 

Holiday Public Holiday Time Compensation Days (explained below) total off days
New Year’s 1/1 – 1/3 Sunday, January 4 is a work day 3
Spring Festival 2/18 – 2/24 Sunday, February 15 and Saturday, February 28 are work days 7
Tomb Sweeping Festival 4/4 – 4/6 Monday, April 6th is an off-day to make the holiday a 3-day weekend 3
Labor Day 5/1 – 5/3 Monday, May 3 is an off-day to make the holiday a 3-day weekend 3
Dragonboat Festival 6/20 – 6/22 Monday, June 22 is an off-day to make the holiday a 3-day weekend 3
WWII Victory Day Festival 9/3 – 9/5 Friday, September 4 is an off-day, and Sunday September 6 becomes a workday 3
Mid-Autumn Festival 9/26 – 9/27 The weekend days are the holiday 2
PRC National Day 10/1 – 10/7 Saturday, October 10 becomes a work day 7

2. Explaining the Tiaoxiu “Compensation” Days

China has what seems very strange to Westerners: tiaoxiu, or “compensation” days. Depending on when the holidays fall, the government will essentially move the work week backwards or forwards a day to allocate consecutive days for the rest period. For example, you’ll note above for the New Year’s holiday that though the holiday itself was from Thursday, January 1 to Saturday, January 3rd, the following day, January 4th, was denoted as a work day. Thus, the holiday is designed for people to get their “three-day weekend” starting on Thursday, and return to work on Sunday.

This year was particularly strange as the Mid-Autumn Festival days, which depends on the lunar calendar, fell entirely on a weekend and also very near to the succeeding National Day holiday. Employees in China were not robbed of their precious days off, however, as the government scheduled the much publicized “WWII Victory Day” Celebration at the beginning of September. The compensation day voodoo was again utilized here as Thursday the 3rd to Saturday the 5th were off-days, but people returned to work on Sunday. Plus, this made up for the “lost” days of the Mid-Autumn Festival

3. Understanding China’s Spring Festival Holiday

The big one that trips people up is the Spring Festival. Since the holiday is based on the lunar calendar, the timing of this week-long holiday varies year to year. Generally, the official public holiday will fall sometime between mid-January and the end of February, but you should always pay attention to when exactly the holiday will be months before making any business travel.

While the official public holiday is only a week, the Chinese Spring Festival holiday is akin to what we experience in America around Christmas/New Year’s time, but on steroids. China is really slow for business throughout most of January and February, and starts building up momentum again only after the holiday concludes. As I’ve written about before, China is home to the world’s largest human migration every year around the Spring Festival. Many employees will take all their available vacation days around that time to extend the holiday. Most business owners are traveling home or perhaps abroad.

My best advice is to get what you need to get done before January 1st, and then wait until after Spring Festival to make your trip to the Orient. Looking ahead to 2016, next year’s Spring Festival is slated for February 7 to February 13.

4. Plan ahead

The good news is that now this doesn’t have to be a total mystery to you if you merely plan ahead. The Chinese government typically issues the official public holiday schedule sometime between December 9th and December 14th. You can check back on this blog around then to get the scoop!