Wednesday TeaDay 5/11/11 Fave TeaPronunciations

[Drax]

There is a tea word topic, but it might be green oriented. Maybe even Japanese oriented. Drax posted it. I will have to look it up. I do not think it included pronunciation however. Good idea.

I can edit it so that it includes a pronunciation guide. Fortunately Japanese is relatively easy, being a syllabic language w/ only minor perturbations. Chinese on the other hand......


Shui Xian!!

[Chip]

Fujitsubo GeeYoKuRow brewed up in a new shiboridashi/cups from Petr, a birthday gift that arrived 2 days ago (after a 5 week journey)!

Came out remarkably good and sweet for 6 steeps, could brew more, but these leaves have a date with soy sauce in a few minutes!

I brewed at 2 grams per 1 ounce, I suspect that this could be brewed in an even higher ratio.

[Stentor]

LOL the Wuyi Oolong story is the best

Oh and Chip, how long do you steep gyokuro after the first?

[Chip]

LOL the Wuyi Oolong story is the best

Oh and Chip, how long do you steep gyokuro after the first?

Gyo second steep, usually 15-30 seconds, no mas! 3rd steep, about a minute, etc. Increasing temp a little each time.

Glad you liked the Wuyi oolong story!

[Drax]

Gyrocopter. Wait, what?

Rama lama ding dong!

Er... how about Dong Ding!

[Stentor]

Thank you, Chip. I'm probably going to have some of Yamashita's gyokuro tomorrow (provided I find the time to sit down and enjoy it properly). I'm quite excited about it, never had such high grade gyokuro before.

Er... how about Dong Ding!

Yeah, this sure earns some smiles as well

[Chip]

Thank you, Chip. I'm probably going to have some of Yamashita's gyokuro tomorrow (provided I find the time to sit down and enjoy it properly). I'm quite excited about it, never had such high grade gyokuro before.

Which one!!!???!!!

[verus]

I like the word "oolong". It soudns the way it tastes; sweet, sultry, smooth, seductive.

Drinking longjing tonight.

[AdamMY]

While not a tea term, but a teaware term, I love the word Yunomi!

[nickE]

Of course! A Chinese friend of mine once spent 10 minutes trying to teach me how to correctly say "shui."

Shui Xian is a fun word. I also love the word "yixing" and of course, DahongPAO!

Currently I'm brewing Shengpu. Earlier had Sencha. Later will be Yancha.

[Chip]

Of course! A Chinese friend of mine once spent 10 minutes trying to teach me how to correctly say "shui."

Shui Xian is a fun word.

Can you give it a go ... phonetically for us???

[Drax]

Of course! A Chinese friend of mine once spent 10 minutes trying to teach me how to correctly say "shui."

Shui Xian is a fun word.

Can you give it a go ... phonetically for us???

Something tells me that it's not "shoo-wee"...!!

[nickE]

Of course! A Chinese friend of mine once spent 10 minutes trying to teach me how to correctly say "shui."

Shui Xian is a fun word.

Can you give it a go ... phonetically for us???

It actually was really interesting. He kept harping on me for over-pronouncing the "sh" sound, but when I would use just an "s" sound, he'd say that was wrong, too! I guess it's somewhere in between.

My friend is from Northern China, and said that he speaks with a somewhat different dialect. He said "shui" will commonly sound like "shwee" (but not so hard on the "ee") whereas he pronounces it more as "sway" (also, lighter on the "sh" sound).

It was a very enlightening conversation, but I still can't say I know how to pronounce it!

[wyardley]

It actually was really interesting. He kept harping on me for over-pronouncing the "sh" sound, but when I would use just an "s" sound, he'd say that was wrong, too! I guess it's somewhere in between.

My friend is from Northern China, and said that he speaks with a somewhat different dialect. He said "shui" will commonly sound like "shwee" (but not so hard on the "ee") whereas he pronounces it more as "sway" (also, lighter on the "sh" sound).

Well, in Mandarin, you can either say it with an 'sh' sound but with your tongue curled back to the top of your mouth, or you can just say it like most Chinese people I know, and use just a straight s sound. sh without the tongue curled back is 'x', not 'sh'. Southerners tend to transpose ch with c, zh with z, and sh with s. I say it the improper way, because I get made fun of by my wife if I say it "properly".

To my ears, it's usually closer to 'sway' than 'shwee', though some people will be more towards one or the other.

The tones are important also; shui is third tone, so start in the middle, go down, and then go up, and it will be drawn out a little more (time-wise) than if it were in second tone, for example. Xian is first tone, so it will be a high flat tone.

You can click the 'listen' button here to hear female and male voices say it.
http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/% ... B%99/39460

[AdamMY]

While I think Japanese is worlds easier to pronounce for English speakers than Chinese is. Japanese is not without its own sets of quirks. For example one of the most basic verbs in Japanese is romanized as desu.

Almost entirely through the semester of Japanese 1, the teacher heard me say a sentence and kept on telling me I was pronouncing desu wrong. And sadly I still have no clear idea of exactly how she wanted me to fix it.

Just seeing desu written, makes people think it would be pronounced De-sue. But when ever I would hear the teacher speak and the people on the tapes speak, it always sounded like they dropped the u, and it was more just "des." Which is the speaking I adopted, which she felt the need to correct at the end of the semester. The best I could gather is the u is voiced but its voiced so incredibly subtly that it is almost as if the u is said while inhaling after the word.

Perhaps one of the more fluent Japanese speakers could shed light on that conundrum.