{"id":744,"date":"2007-08-04T16:36:21","date_gmt":"2007-08-04T08:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2007\/i-now-pronounce-this-character-taiwanese-and-english\/"},"modified":"2018-09-03T15:35:18","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T07:35:18","slug":"i-now-pronounce-this-character-taiwanese-and-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2007\/i-now-pronounce-this-character-taiwanese-and-english\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I now pronounce this character Taiwanese and English’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"clickA movie currently doing well at the box office in both the United States and Taiwan is I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry<\/em>. In Taiwan, the film has been given the linguistically interesting title Dāng wǒmen gèi<\/em> zài yīqǐ<\/span> (《當我們ㄍㄟˋ在一起》 \/ 《當我們假在一起》 ). <\/p>\n

The title is a Mandarin phrase that uses Taiwanese in order to make a pun involving English — an apt mix for the island. <\/p>\n

The movie title is an allusion a well-known children’s song, “Dāng wǒmen tóng zài yīqǐ<\/span>” (當我們同在一起), which was taken from the English-language children’s song “The More We Are Together.” <\/p>\n

\n

The more we get together,
\nTogether, together,
\nThe more we get together,
\nThe happier we’ll be;
\nFor your friends are my friends
\nAnd my friends are your friends,
\nThe more we get together,
\nThe happier we’ll be.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This song uses the tune<\/a> of Ach du lieber Augustin<\/a> but has radically different words. <\/p>\n

\"close-upGetting back to the Taiwanese title, “tóng<\/span>” (同) of “Dāng wǒmen tóng zài yīqǐ<\/span>” has been replaced by what in Mandarin is jiǎ<\/span> (假 — false, fake). But the character 假 has been assigned a Taiwanese reading, gèi, as can be seen by the inclusion of zhuyin fuhao<\/a> to the right of the character (ㄍㄟˋ = gèi<\/em> in Hanyu Pinyin). <\/p>\n

Gèi<\/em> is of course meant to call to mind not just the “false” of the relationship in the movie but also the English word “gay” — this being a movie about two men pretending to be a homosexual couple. <\/p>\n

In China, where foreign movies often receive titles different from those in Taiwan, the movie is called Wǒ shèngdà de tóngzhì hūnlǐ<\/span> (《我盛大的同志婚礼》\/ My Magnificent Comrade’s Wedding<\/em>). Although the usual translation for tongzhi<\/em> is “comrade,” the word has also become Mandarin slang for homosexual. Perhaps some readers can comment on how prominent or passé this use of tongzhi<\/em> is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A movie currently doing well at the box office in both the United States and Taiwan is I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. In Taiwan, the film has been given the linguistically interesting title Dāng wǒmen gèi zài yīqǐ … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,41,106,28,32,3,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china","category-chinese","category-english","category-hanyu","category-languages","category-mandarin","category-taiwan","category-zhuyin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7996,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/7996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}