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你好 ,欢迎收听随行汉语。 Welcome to Takeaway Chinese.
I'm Niu Honglin with Steve Hatherley in the studio.
Hello, Steve. Hello, Niu Honglin.
Thanks for having me back.
Always a pleasure having you here.
I like it when I learn, always, always learn a little bit of something.
thing from you about you all the time.
And today my question is, are you a fan of music?
Oh, I love music. Um, maybe on two or three different occasions in my previous, uh, broadcast experiences, I hosted music shows.
Yeah. I, I at one time hosted a show that it was about rock and roll music.
Then I hosted another show that was just kind of like, um, Kind of like an FM radio music show with lots of songs played.
And yeah, I love music.
One of the things that I loved about doing those types of shows is that when you host music shows, you have to do a lot of research about music.
Of course. Yeah. And I remember one night my friend called me and said, what are you doing?
And I said, oh, I'm working.
He said, oh, are you still at the station?
I said, no, I'm home.
He said, what are you doing?
I said, oh, I'm watching a Foo Fighters documentary.
adventure that's a rock band from america and he said oh my gosh you're not working i said well for me it is kind of research and work so yeah it's fun um i really enjoyed it now musical talents zero zero what's what's less than zero minus 100 i've tried i don't believe you you can you can hum when you're in the shower what's that got to do with musical talent um i i enjoy singing singing when we go to the singing room.
I love it, but I'm not good at it at all.
Music instruments? Musical instruments.
I've only tried to learn to play the guitar.
I've tried on three separate occasions, and I have failed on three separate occasions.
I shouldn't say I failed fully, because I did learn how to play one song from start to finish.
It took me about maybe two months to learn how to play that because my teacher told me don't just learn the notes learn a song and you'll learn the chords yes in in that song and then you can apply that to your next song right yeah yeah but because it took me so long to practice playing and singing one song by the time i learned how to play it i hated that song so much i never wanted to play it again i I never wanted to hear it again.
And I realized, oh, but this is part of the process of learning to play guitar.
And it kind of took the fun out of it for me a little bit.
But that said, that was a while ago.
And my wife and I were just recently talking, hey, maybe we should buy a couple of guitars and try to learn how to play together.
Oh, in that case, I have a wonderful place I can recommend you to pick your next guitar.
That is a county I just visited recently.
it's in Guizhou province and that little county it's really not a huge place yet in that county you can find one seventh of the entire world's guitar produced yeah I was watching your live stream when you were down in Guizhou and you were there at the guitar factory and that was one of the interesting things that I learned from watching your live stream was that and I couldn't believe leave it one seventh of all the guitars in the world all of the guitars in the world come from that particular place yes and to get into that conversation before getting into that conversation do you know how to
say guitar in chinese i do not it's quite easy it's guitar it sounds exactly the same yes you can say it's easier and it's more chinese pronunciation like like, so 吉他, we use the light tone sometimes, it depends, you still need to remember separate words, and each and every different words, when they're using the light tone, there's no rule for that, no general rule that you can always apply, but 吉他 is one of the examples, so 吉他, and that is guitar.
I have another tone question for you, do we have time now okay when i listen to people speak chinese when it's a full -on conversation and people are speaking kind of quickly i don't notice the tones exaggerated as much as when you're learning the characters and i wanted to know if that was just something no it's not you you it's not your ears it's the real situation you can kind of understand it as when you hear a news anchor reporting news her tone would be much more exaggerating than people actually talking to each other it's the same thing here in china if not even more severe okay i think
the previous generation or anchors for the previous generation would have something we call boyin so qiang is like a style or tone and boyin is broadcasting so they have their broadcasting style okay yeah quite distinctive easy to recognize and they would pronounce all of the chinese characters perfectly yet those would be closer to the ways that you learn to speak or the teachers teach but the idea is that we want everybody to be able to know how to pronounce mouth each and every character correctly.
Yet in daily conversation, the general principle would be the easier the better.
Easier being you do not need to fully enunciate the tone.
I understand. Okay, that's good because that's what I was picking up on.
And I didn't know if that was just me or if that's the way it was.
That's the way it is.
So jitang, light tone, easier to pronounce, easier to remember.
And that is the theme of today's Takeaway Chinese.
For our dear dear listeners, if you're interested in Chinese culture and you want to get a grip on the Chinese language, then this is the show for you.
Stick with us for 30 minutes and you soon see the rewards.
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way. So besides guitar, another key word about music would be music.
And music in Chinese is yín yuè.
Oh, that's a little tougher than guitar.
Yín yuè. Yín yuè. Yes, perfect.
So when it comes to different sounds, there are different Chinese characters for the name or the translation for sound.
Technically speaking, when we say sound, we say 声音 in Chinese.
Both 声 and 音 carry the meaning of sound.
People have different understandings about the origins of these characters.
Some people believe 声 is merely the sound.
It can be a sound generated by two things clashing on each other, bumping onto each other, whereas 音 would be a bit more rhythmic.
so a rhythmic sound would be a yin whereas sheng is only the sound okay and when it comes to yue yue is the sound that comes together and they have a relationship among each other so sheng and yin would be the sounds yue would be the music and yinyue we talked about this chinese people like two syllable words so yinyue music is an official way of saying music in chinese okay Okay, got it.
And this refers to any type of music.
Any type of music. 音乐。 For example, you can say 你喜欢什么音乐?
What type of music would you enjoy?
Do you like? 你喜欢like什么what类型type的音乐?
What type of music do you like?
你喜欢什么类型的音乐? 音乐。 Okay, now that I missed, I totally ignored the tones there.
But I think I can still understand you.
Really? Okay, can you do it one more time for me?
And then I'll try to be more accurate with the tones.
你喜欢什么类型的音乐? 你喜欢什么类型的音乐?
Better! Not 100 % accurate, but better!
Thank you. Good job, yes.
Because Chinese is very, it's a yin -yue language.
It has tones for sure.
And when we talk about guitar, guitars, definitely you can also ask, 你会弹吉他吗?
你会弹吉他吗? 你会弹吉他吗? Can you play the guitar?
Can you play the guitar?
And for you, you can answer the question with, Okay, now teach me how to say my fingers are too short and fat.
No, what I'm going to teach you is I have learned And that is 我学过 Okay, I have learned Is 我学过 我学 is I have No, 我学 is I learn Oh, 我学 is I learned Because 学 is learn 学习 would be learning or studying And 过 means This action has passed So for this particular case 我学过吉他 It means I have learned it Whether or not I still know how to play If I'm a really good guitar player I don't know But I have learned it Okay so there's no There's no other implication necessarily Other than the fact I'm answering your question You asked me have you done this And I say yes I have Yes and if I'm really good I would say
我会弹吉他 I know how to play guitar Right same rule applies in English I have a question about nǐ huì tàn can you can you play to be more precise because tàn carries the meaning of play oh ok ok ok so nǐ huì is just can you ok so nǐ huì that can you is that asking about ability or like a request or both because in English can you play the guitar and can you help me it's still can you but it's two different totally different things same here in Chinese 你会来吗 Will you come?
天会下雨吗 Will it rain?
我会弹吉他 I know how to play guitar 会 is a complicated character which explained 会 I think couple or even more than a hundred episodes ago go uh but hui is a kind of word you can find in the chinese language that can be used in a lot of different occasions okay okay understood thank you of course and for guitar there are different types of guitar so which was the one that you learned you learned acoustic guitar acoustic yeah my kind of in my guitar fantasy i had oh and by the way i bought three different guitars guitars.
All three different guitars.
Yeah. And I put them on display in my living room.
Here in Beijing? No, in my house in Seoul, because I look at guitars like they are pieces of art, honestly.
So they are aesthetically pleasing to me.
Now, usually when somebody has three guitars in their living room, it would imply they know how to use them.
Not necessarily. I thought that I would, but I just didn't.
But yeah, Yeah, I learned only on acoustic, excuse me.
My dream was to have like an amplifier and an electric guitar and have like my own little like man cave studio somehow.
Just a stupid like fantasy in my head.
No, it's a very common fantasy for a lot of boys.
Yeah, it never happened though, so.
No worries. Now at least you would know how to say those different types of guitars in Chinese.
Let's start with the easy one, classic guitars.
古典吉他 古典吉他 古典 is classic Okay For instance If we're talking about 古典音乐 We're talking about classic music So 古典 And also 古典文学 Classic literature Same thing Okay 古典吉他 古典吉他 By that You're referring to an acoustic guitar?
I'm referring to classic guitar The ones with the More strings I think they have No they have nylon strings And then you also have the steel string guitar, the relatively, the one that you play and sing along with kind of guitar.
That one is a little bit complicated because in English, you're talking about the material used in the string.
Yet in Chinese, we call it 民谣吉他.
民谣吉他. Yes, 民 is people, 谣 is ballad.
So 民谣 is folk song.
Okay, focus on guitar Focus on guitar The difference here is that of course When you're using an acoustic guitar or a steel string guitar You can still play the rhymes, still play the melody, the music Yet you always or you definitely still have the choice of sing along When you're playing the chords Whereas for classical guitar, the classic guitar Mostly it's for the melody I see So that's the difference So 古典吉他 would be classic guitar, 民谣吉他 would be steel string guitar or acoustic guitar.
And then we have 电吉他, electric guitar.
电 is electricity, electric.
The reason in Chinese acoustic guitars are 民谣吉他 is that I think the popularization of acoustic guitars in China China is at the same stage with the popularization with 校园民谣 in Chinese.
That's the kind of folk ballads but specifically in campus.
Yeah, so really popular on college campuses for that.
I don't know if you'd call it a genre of music.
But yeah, I guess the closest description in English would be a folk ballad.
Yeah, these kind of really emotional pretty sounding songs on an acoustic guitar.
Yes, I can definitely still remember the coolest guy in the campus who can play a little bit guitar and don't really want to talk to girls only in his music world.
He wanted to talk to girls.
Don't be mistaken. That's why every young man who learns to play the guitar learns to play the guitar.
I'm teasing, kind of.
that being said we know that the strings are very important to guitars the material of strings we talked about nylon strings belong to a classic guitar and string in chinese is sian sian yes it's easy right string sian sian and the string on all of the instruments not only guitar but also So violin or bass would all be 弦, easy to remember.
And besides 弦, when we learn acoustic guitars, you want to sing along with it.
So instead of playing the melody, you're playing the chords.
And chords in Chinese is 和弦.
和弦 means putting different strings together.
It makes sense, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Putting them together.
Together string. 和弦.
和弦. Yes, it's that easy.
Now you have the basic knowledge about the different terms about guitars.
You didn't answer your own question, though.
你会弹吉他吗? 我也学过。 I have also learned a little guitar.
But I learned that 我学过吉他 means, Yep, but it doesn't imply that you still play?
I don't. No, I don't play.
I don't. I can't. So there you go.
That's a good tip if you're a student of Chinese language, which you are if you're listening to this.
If someone answers, it doesn't mean anything other than, yup.
I have spent a little bit of my time learning it.
It's difficult, isn't it?
It is difficult. Well, it hurts your fingers in the beginning, your fingertips.
Because you have to press down really hard on the guitar strings.
strings and you cannot touch other strings it will affect the sound of it very challenging yes but I have never seen so many so many very expensive guitars at only two days before the business trip in my life I went to the place and I got to see all the different types of guitars And, you know, one key word I had about that business trip is a Chinese idiom.
I keep on thinking about it the entire journey.
And the idiom is 精益求精.
精益求精 精益求精 精益求精 精益求 精 啊, 精, 精 Yes 精益求精 Yes, 精 means perfect or perfection or really, really good excellency 易 means more 求 means pursue and 精 means good or perfection So, it's already really good but you continue to want it to be even better.
It's already the next to perfection, but you still want it to improve.
The reason I'm thinking about this Chinese idiom all the time when I was there was that the kind of dedication people, when I say people, I mean the masters, the masters, the craftsmen, the luteers, they put in manufacturing a guitar, but also developing a better guitar.
I mean, it can be bettered in different ways.
It can be cheaper with the same quality.
It can be with a customized style for different players.
It can be using different materials as decoration yet do not affect the sound of the guitar.
It can be innovative, better technology applied on the guitar.
It's so many different areas, so many different aspects are being improved, being studied and being researched in that little county in Guizhou.
It was so fun. That applies, I think, to a lot of different things, right?
If you You want to buy something really top -end.
A top -end guitar will cost you a lot of money.
But if you're a new student, then you can buy a new guitar for a pretty good price, I would say.
Is it going to be the best -sounding guitar in the world?
Probably not, but it's your tool to learn how to play.
So it's nice that there are cheaper options out there for people who are looking to learn for the first time.
Yes, and in Zheng 'an County, when it comes to the manufacturing of guitars, guitars, there are definitely different types.
I think that Little County started with being the manufacturing factories, the manufacturing companies for the high end world renowned guitars with different brands, they have to have the ability to produce the guitar up to the standards, yet they didn't used to have their own brands.
So they have really good skills, but they do not own the ip right basically and also they didn't have that much of the researching ability so it's hard for them to make adjustments to the guitars that they're producing but the situation quickly changed different companies started to develop their own brands and the brands they develop is a name they make on the international stage for sure they produce high high quality guitars, and they make sure customers enjoy their product.
And that's how they make their name recognized and accepted on the world stage for sure.
But that is only the first step, they would also develop, like we've already discussed, different material industry.
And they try to find material that is environmentally friendly, that is cheaper, novel, interesting in different ways for instance i've seen a guitar made out of bamboo oh how would that change the sound i wonder they want to make sure that by changing the material of the case they do not change the sound of the guitar the catch is to make sure the standard is still very high and it's not only about the relatively higher pitched sounds but also the lower pitched ones and also in the middle so you know guitar has six strings and for each and every string when you play them together when you struck
on them when you use a pick or not the sound quality is supposed to be stayed on the same standards okay but they also want to change the material of the guitar they want to change the decoration the embedded parts of the guitar and they also want want to incorporate this is quite cute on that bamboo guitar you can choose to have a little logo of a panda stick on it and on another very beautiful guitar that is decorated with silver we mentioned this the previous time that silver is very important to people living in guizhou it's related to a local intangible cultural heritage item and by embedding
silver decorations on a guitar you would definitely change the weight of the guitar change the density of that part of the guitar but they managed to do that without changing the quality the sound of the guitar you really became a guitar expert on your trip that you should start a guitar podcast i should guitars are really fun but what's more interesting what's got my attention was again the the dedication of the people in the industry.
精益求精 So at the end of today's Takeaway Chinese, I'd like to share a moment we recorded during our visit to a guitar factory.
And let's take a listen and enjoy the beauty of guitars.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. so and that brings us to the end of today's takeaway chinese i'm new honlin with steve here in the studio for more episodes of the show you can visit our website at radio .cgtn .com and go to the column podcast you can also listen to the show and read the script there find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast just search for takeaway chinese don't forget to leave your questions comments and ratings.
感谢收听 ,我们下次再见。 Thanks so much. See you next time.
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