interpret
Here is what happened tonight...
I arrived at my students house and discovered that her "famous teacher from one of Taipei's most prestigious universities and further such gack as might be imagined" had assigned a book about idioms with examples of idioms and explanations written in Chinese. The first example was "We ate at the restaurant." The explanation said that "ate" is a transitive verb "so at the restaurant" must be an idiom because the object of a transitive verb is not seperated from it's verb by a preposition. I explained that "eat" is a transitive verb but the object can be assumed as people generally eat food and not plastic plants. "At the restaurant" is an adverb phrase and neither fixed nor metaphorical and so has none of the characteristics of an idiom.
Yes, I explained that in Chinese. Sue me.
She still didn't quite get it so I explained that words have what could be considered a basic sense and this basic sense could be thought, generally, as the first few meanings listed in a dictionary. If a group of words can be understood using these basic meanings it is probably not an idiom.
Look I said, breaking into English and a bit of a sweat, over here you got black, over there you got white, in the middle whatta you got? That's right, a whole lotta grey. Like in the Led Zepplin song we did last week remember "Whole lotta love" yeah, like that except a whole lotta grey. It's a metaphor, bi3yu4. You remember bi3yu, metaphor, like the Neil Yong song "Heart of Gold." That was a metaphor.
All that was a bit of a kafuffle so moving right along I taught the song "If I could" by Jack Johnson. Played it once through and asked what it was about. She knew it was about a baby, somebody dying, crying...
Not bad. That "is" what it is about.
The first two lines...
"A brand new baby was born yesterday, just in time."
"Papa cried, baby cried, said your tears are like mine."
My questions: "Just in time for what?"
"'Your tears are like mine" so what?"
She had no idea.
I explained that "my interpretation" "my quan2shi4" (that is how I talk) was that a baby was born just in time to maintain the balance of souls. She knew balance, she didn't know soul so I touched my heart. Clear enough. We looked it up anyway (mind if I write that down? What is the tone again? Thanks.). Came up with linghun. Agreed that a different interpretation, a different quan2shi4, was possible, and that the writer, this guy here, Jack Johnson, might have intended (had to look that up - "intend," good word, should have written it down)a different meaning and that if she wanted she could apply (hmmm "apply"... interesting collocation, remember we did collocation? how do you say that again, yeah yeah that's right dapei lian luo/yong?. )
Later the lyrics said...
"And though you've got to go we'll keep a piece of your soul."
She didn't know "piece" so I tore of a piece of paper and told her "this is a piece of paper." Odd isn't it? I don't think the writer is using "piece" quite literally, quite an zhao zi mian de here, but perhaps if you have have ever had anyone close to you die before you can understand what the writer is talking about. Yeah, yeah she did...
Tender moment there.
Anyway, we continued from there with me reading the lyrics aloud, crying at the right moment, tears rolling down, tasting, "if I could" gesture etc. and she translated it line by line into Chinese because that is what I have trained her to do.
Next I told her I didn't want a translation. I wanted her to show me understood using gestures, like I did for her, like I have been training her to do for weeks. Played the song again. She acted it out, giggled, danced, sang (not part of the assignment but so what?) even forgot to stutter. Interesting point there.
At the end of the class I asked her which was her favorite word. I always ask them what their favorite word is, and because they know I'll ask, they think about it, hmmm what was the best word we did today?
I always think about it too and today was rough. We did a lot of good words: chorus, lyric sheet, predict, suffix, prefix... but "her" answer today was unequivocal.
It was "interpret."
I arrived at my students house and discovered that her "famous teacher from one of Taipei's most prestigious universities and further such gack as might be imagined" had assigned a book about idioms with examples of idioms and explanations written in Chinese. The first example was "We ate at the restaurant." The explanation said that "ate" is a transitive verb "so at the restaurant" must be an idiom because the object of a transitive verb is not seperated from it's verb by a preposition. I explained that "eat" is a transitive verb but the object can be assumed as people generally eat food and not plastic plants. "At the restaurant" is an adverb phrase and neither fixed nor metaphorical and so has none of the characteristics of an idiom.
Yes, I explained that in Chinese. Sue me.
She still didn't quite get it so I explained that words have what could be considered a basic sense and this basic sense could be thought, generally, as the first few meanings listed in a dictionary. If a group of words can be understood using these basic meanings it is probably not an idiom.
Look I said, breaking into English and a bit of a sweat, over here you got black, over there you got white, in the middle whatta you got? That's right, a whole lotta grey. Like in the Led Zepplin song we did last week remember "Whole lotta love" yeah, like that except a whole lotta grey. It's a metaphor, bi3yu4. You remember bi3yu, metaphor, like the Neil Yong song "Heart of Gold." That was a metaphor.
All that was a bit of a kafuffle so moving right along I taught the song "If I could" by Jack Johnson. Played it once through and asked what it was about. She knew it was about a baby, somebody dying, crying...
Not bad. That "is" what it is about.
The first two lines...
"A brand new baby was born yesterday, just in time."
"Papa cried, baby cried, said your tears are like mine."
My questions: "Just in time for what?"
"'Your tears are like mine" so what?"
She had no idea.
I explained that "my interpretation" "my quan2shi4" (that is how I talk) was that a baby was born just in time to maintain the balance of souls. She knew balance, she didn't know soul so I touched my heart. Clear enough. We looked it up anyway (mind if I write that down? What is the tone again? Thanks.). Came up with linghun. Agreed that a different interpretation, a different quan2shi4, was possible, and that the writer, this guy here, Jack Johnson, might have intended (had to look that up - "intend," good word, should have written it down)a different meaning and that if she wanted she could apply (hmmm "apply"... interesting collocation, remember we did collocation? how do you say that again, yeah yeah that's right dapei lian luo/yong?. )
Later the lyrics said...
"And though you've got to go we'll keep a piece of your soul."
She didn't know "piece" so I tore of a piece of paper and told her "this is a piece of paper." Odd isn't it? I don't think the writer is using "piece" quite literally, quite an zhao zi mian de here, but perhaps if you have have ever had anyone close to you die before you can understand what the writer is talking about. Yeah, yeah she did...
Tender moment there.
Anyway, we continued from there with me reading the lyrics aloud, crying at the right moment, tears rolling down, tasting, "if I could" gesture etc. and she translated it line by line into Chinese because that is what I have trained her to do.
Next I told her I didn't want a translation. I wanted her to show me understood using gestures, like I did for her, like I have been training her to do for weeks. Played the song again. She acted it out, giggled, danced, sang (not part of the assignment but so what?) even forgot to stutter. Interesting point there.
At the end of the class I asked her which was her favorite word. I always ask them what their favorite word is, and because they know I'll ask, they think about it, hmmm what was the best word we did today?
I always think about it too and today was rough. We did a lot of good words: chorus, lyric sheet, predict, suffix, prefix... but "her" answer today was unequivocal.
It was "interpret."
posted by david at 1:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home