Chinese Homophones 1
when it comes to spoken Chinese, one of the most difficult aspects is words that sound the same. this seems like it would lead to a lot of misunderstandings, native speakers use context and tones to distinguish between these similar sounding words. However this is never easy for people studying Chinese as a foreign language. I have listed some of the common homophones that trip up learners and practical strategies to deal with them.
- wǒ yàoshuì jiào睡覺 (I want to sleep) vs. wǒ yàoshuǐjiǎo 水餃 (I want boiled dumplings)
“shuì jiào”, with both syllables in the fourth tone, means “to sleep”. To remember this, you might imagine someone who “falling” asleep, mirroring the “falling” of the fourth tone
Conversely “shuǐjiǎo”, both syllables in the third tone, refers to a kind of boiled dumplings. In this case, you could picture the dumplings being dipped into, and then left out of, boiling water, symboling the “falling/rising” sound of the third tone.
2. yǎnjing眼睛 (eyes) vs. yǎn jìng眼镜 (glasses)
these two are very easy to mess up , especially the second and third tone have headached you already. a quick hack is to add measure words/ verbs when you use these phrases. Like
我要買一副眼镜。
wǒ yаo mǎi yī fù yǎn jìng
I’d like to buy a pair of glasses.
this way, it may help people to catch what you need in the first place. however, there is still a risk of confusing in other sentence structure. an example of asking people do they carry a glasses with them and turn out the sentence like :
你戴眼鏡了嗎？nǐ dài yǎn jìng le ma ?
have you brought your glasses with you?
a little mistake can lead some unwanted offensiveness onto:
你帶眼睛了嗎？ nǐ dài yǎnjing le ma ? are you blind!?
In case of it, you can bring up little body language to ensure the person get you right.
