He also does a fake British accent in one episode. So a British actor, speaking in an American accent, talking in mandarin, who can also fake having a terrible British accent
A British actor, who got the part even though the show director or whatever said no British actor, they wanted only an American so Hugh put on an American accent in his hotel bathroom for the audition and they hired him saying something like "See!? A truely talented American actor!" That's also why Chase is Aussie. He was meant to be British, but Hugh hates people trying to do a British accent so they let the actor do their normal Aussie accent, which got a lot more women into the show because hot young Aussie doctor.
@@Knuckles2761 I will? That's amazing. In all seriousness I'm tragically no longer fluent in German. As a kid I had never hear my mom speak a single word in German so I thought she didn't understand... ..and then I mouthed off to her in German, found out that you can understand a language even if you can't speak it, and that a bar of dial handsoap tastes terrible. Before anyone says something about her being in the wrong for literally washing my mouth out with soap: 1. This was before laws that restricted punishments like that existed. 2. We live in Wichita Falls, Texas at the time. 3. To this day I don't remember what I said, but I'm surprised I'm still alive. 4. Other than a few phrases, I haven't spoken German since.
House was obviously lying about having limited Mandarin skills (common with House) and was some level of fluent. He was following the conversation each time, knew the girl was lying and "mis-translating" and the mother was a pawn.
@@brianstraight9308 Not necessarily. He might have just caught the words for "wrong prescription" 😁 Hear me out. Since he's a doctor, it's implied the reason he knew the phrase to congratulate someone on pregnancy is because he would only know basic doctor lingo aside from the basics. That could include "wrong prescription". He didn't know enough mandarin to explain to the mom what happened, so that was likely the closest he was able to say to hint at the birth control pills. Or at the very least get the mom to suspect the daughter was perhaps not being too candid with her translations.
The detail in this scene always impressed me. The mom uses "correct", informal (if dated) language, the girl can speak pretty well but is clearly translating from her native tongue (English) because she's born in the US, and House's Mandarin is good but very formal... as if he's learnt it primarily to be able to understand Chinese medical books/lectures.
They missed a crucial detail that House would never have passed up the opportunity in the first visit of revealing he knew Mandarin and being a snarky ahole
@@ecMathGeek Plus, I think he gets more joy in waiting for his big reveal. He's often very selective in when/how he cuts peoples' legs out from under them in order to obtain the maximum effect.
@@rwwilson21 I think you have it wrong. If I remember correctly, his dad was stationed in Japan. Besides, the US doesn't have a military base in China so his dad couldn't have been stationed there. House knows how much venom random snakes have so I wouldn't be surprised that he learned Mandarin just for the heck of it 😂
Well the accent was pretty bad and he did mispronounce some words, which would have changed the meaning. So really....it's the people who wrote the script that made it easy for him to say or his voice coaches. These reaction videos never have the full clip either. Chinese is actually really really...easy to say when it's written down, plus British people invaded China during the opium wars, so many have experience in Chinese, over in England today. But with so much history and languages it's easy to assume
I think the direct translation of the girl's line when she lies by saying he gave her the wrong meds is a brilliant detail. She appears to be US-born, and therefore much less proficient. Much of her sentences might naturally end up being direct translations if she learned the language more through studying rather than daily exposure.
She's lying about the meds because she's there to get birth control for herself. This is why people need to watch the show to understand the context. She's not "misunderstanding" she's outright lying because she knows the old lady can't understand English and she's using that to her advantage to lie to the doctor and get the meds SHE wants.
@@alexpadilla9713 Many first generation Americans have no idea how to speak their mother tongue despite being around it all the time. Others end up learning it over time via books and courses.
@@ShiroKage009 i am a first gen german american and i can understand german to an extent but cant speak it will my mom never had us speaking it at home
I love this scene. (If you try to throw House under the bus, he WILL Uno-Reverse Card you & throw YOU under the bus!) Also, nice video. I did not know that they were speaking (mostly) proper Mandarin. (I "suspected" though, since it sounded pretty legit to my Gaijin ears.)
@@sharkdentures3247 "mostly proper Mandarin". You have to hand it to Hugh Laurie, he needed as a Brit fake an American accent as well while speaking Mandarin ^^
I think it might be even more than that, though. House was fine with her deceiving her mom to get BC pills, probably because he knows, as a doctor, that when "traditional" families try to keep teens from accessing contraceptives in order to keep them from having sex, the strategy often backfires spectacularly (hi, GOP states with abstinence-only sex ed and the nation's highest teen pregnancy and STD rates!). But when he realized that the girl was too incompetent to manage to sneak herself BC on the sly, he decided blowing-up her spot and dragging everything into the open was the best thing for everyone. Plus, y'know, the whole "I tried to help you, kid; try to screw me, and this is what you get" thing.
The fact a show got this kind of detail not only right, but also paid enough attention to detail to have enough of a difference in dialect from a native speaker to a second hand native speaker (not born in the country but uses the language at home) is an amazing detail that I am shocked to see from House. Good on the show writers for that one.
As a language enthusiast, I really appreciated the detail in this scene. I constantly see shows and movies mess up things so terribly. In some cases, I think man if you got someone that even just knew the language a little it would be way better
How do you start a new language? I started studying japanese some months ago but i got a little bored with the book which i was using (marugoto) and i found that it was easier using anki(core 2k) for vocabulary, you got any tips on how I can study more efficiently? And is it the same method for every language? I was thinking of studying Chinese after, then the last question is it possible to study 2 languages at the same time like Mandarin and Japanese or is it better to tske 1 at a time?
@@svenskaspelarenkubaren6901 I travel a lot and get bored with a language fast so I change often. Personally I like mixing a lot of different little things (shows, videos, apps, reading, speaking to people, etc.) but honestly it is really up to how you learn best. Many people spend a lot of time researching methods instead of doing anything so anything that keeps you somewhat consistent is valuable.
@@svenskaspelarenkubaren6901 i think, learning two languages on the same level is inefficient (I mean, if you just started learning one and right after that the second one), especially, if they are languages of the same language family like Japanese and Chinese. 'Cause you will be confusing which is which and not really making a progress in both, i guess. Of course, stadying chinese characters will help in studying Japanese but at the beginning it will be confusing. So, I suppose, you should be like somewhat confident in that you're studying the one language right and that you understand how this language actually works, and only then start another one. That's my opinion. But one's definitely sure, you have to find out which way of learning is better for you (as for me, I need a teacher to guide me, esp for Chinese, and a lot of practice).
@@Anna-vb2pj Japanese and Chinese aren't in the same language family, there are a few theories on where Japanese originates from a popular one is that korean and Japanese are somehow related but it could also be that Japanese forms it's own language family, However Japanese has a lot of chinese loan words which may be why it seems like they(Japanese and Chinese) are related but these come from mostly middle chinese or older forms of the chinese languages and so do the kanji representing those words also every kanji can have multiple readings.
@@svenskaspelarenkubaren6901 same... especially when here in georgia, the japanese community is more hidden than the rest of the asian communities or their children don't speak the language. kinda hard to start speaking when there's nobody to converse with. i'm korean and i speak korean so i thought learning japanese would be easy because of the similar loan words and grammar structure. but it was a lot harder than i thought. still learning
She is not translating, she is interpreting (badly). Translation means going from text to text, or speech to text. When the product is speech or signs, that's interpreting.
@@jaimeh387 Translation isn't defined by text to text, and has multiple definitions that fit what the commenter is saying. The main two being: a conversion of one thing to another, and a conversion of one language into another (regardless of the medium in which it is done). Interpreting is synonymous with translating. Additionally, "misinterpreting" is "misunderstanding", so saying "mistranslating" makes more sense. Unless they said they were "deliberately misinterpreting", but that still sounds as though they were "deliberately misunderstanding", as opposed to "deliberately mistranslating the language". Before correcting someone it is wise to do a bit more research on what you are correcting them on.
@@QuackUp While Jaime's definition is overly restrictive, interpretation is *not* synonymous with translating. Interpretation generally refers to the subfield of real time translation. That is mostly applied to verbal communication, but can be applied to other forms as well (sign language, chat).
The mother using older/archaic phrases is a nice little detail. Immigrants who have lived abroad for decades don't have the exposure to the natural cultural evolution of their native language and so end up sounding like they are from a different era. I grew up in Greece and met many Greek Americans an Greek Australians in my day. They often use *really* old words/phrases when speaking in Greek because that's what their parents would say, whereas for me, I have only heard them form either my grandparents generation, or in black/white films from the 60s.
That's happened in Polish. There's a word for 'kiss' that 100+ years ago meant 'a peck on the cheek' like you give your grandmother. It now means a lovers kiss that is not on the lips. You can imagine the confusion😱😂
I can confirm. The German spoken in Wisconsin is closer to 1800s German than 2000s German. Also, growing up in backwoods Wisconsin I grew up with the 1800s rules for Sheepshead. As an adult, I was surprised to learn that the rules had evolved. Basically, it isn't just the language that remains constant.
I know someone in my mom's church, grew up in the US, but once went to China for a business trip. People kept asking why he sounded like their grandparents.
This is also why Italian-Americans speak so differently from people in Italy. Not only did a lot of them immigrate from Italy a long time ago, Italy only standardized their language after 1861 (when the country unified) and the everyday spoken language didn't start to homogenize until radio and TV came along. 1910 Sicilian would be almost unrecognizable to someone who grew up in today's Italy.
By the way, there is another episode of House MD where House speaks Mandarin. The episode is called "Risky Business" (Season 08, Episode 04), and it's about a CEO who does business in China. They also briefly talk about perceptions of mental illness in China, and I'd like to hear your take on it.
I was hoping that's what this video would be about not gonna lie since I already knew the girl was lying and not badly interpreting her mother on accident.
Im stunned at how accurate everyone is in those two scenes, you always expect it to just be gibberish that sounds close enough but the directors behind house really went thr extra mile
I don't understand though why it would be so difficult for a teenage girl to get birth control in a country like America that she has to go through all these hoops.
@Udontknowmi thats the joke. She went through the most difficult path because she wasn't thinking and is why house outs her. She was being stupid, wasted his time, and then fucked it up. Makes sense when you think about how nervous she was to ask house about it and the shit she got into after. Sure she couldve gotten it easier but she wasn't going to ask for herself and certainly wasn't smart enough to check a drugstore
Dr. House's maxim is that everyone lies; he's more interested in why people do what they do rather than what they say. It would have actually made more sense if he had no idea what the woman was saying. House was played by comedian/actor/musician Hugh Laurie affecting an American accent. He's very entertaining!
I think the fact that we ultimately discover that he can speak (some) Chinese actually works well in the context of another aspect of the series, though: At first, he seems to be an incredibly skilled detective, expertly surmising exactly what's wrong with her just by observing little clues and never having to be told anything. But as anyone who's watched the series for a while knows, House actually isn't really "a brilliant medical detective" as much as he's just really good at cutting through BS, and using all the tricks at his disposal to make things turn out right in the end, and make it seem like that was his plan all along. This is so exactly like him, too, to pretend to be deducing everything in this amazing display of deductive reasoning, when he actually didn't even need to because he secretly just actually understood what she was saying from the beginning but just didn't feel it necessary to tell anyone that.
@@foogod4237 It really is more of a detective show than a medical one, that was the intention from the beginning. The pitch of the show to my understanding was basically "What if Sherlock Holmes was a doctor instead of private detective?" This shows up not just in the detective aspect, but also his relationship with W**son. It is sort of interesting to think of this methodology - pretending to be an amazingly deductive doctor in a way that can cause people to inadvertently reveal clues he can dig up. And note how much of his investigation is based not on medical symptoms, but looking at the person's life, backstory, activities, home, and so on. I don't get the sense that's particularly realistic (most medical cases are surely far more mundane) but it makes for a very interesting show.
@@quillmaurer6563 what'll bake your noodle later on is, Sherlock Holmes was BASED on a doctor that Doyle knew at the time, they even make a joke about it in the show(the doctor Holmes is based on)
re "This is pretty good" 5:43 House is known for being sacarstic. The prior two lines are not meant to be taken literally. He speaks "fluent" Mandarin, at least according to the show. He was fully conversing with another Chinese lady in the espisode where he cooks. That scene was super funny too.
I think that's obvious, but what I don't understand is (1) Why would a teenage girl think this would work, especially if her mother is strict? (2) How would pills react this fast? (3) I thought safe sex is promoted in America so why does she need to go through all these hoops?
@@Udontknowmi teens make awful choices all the time. Many areas in the US teach abstinence only, so the schools are not allowed to teach anything about birth control
In the first scene the kid mentioned birth control pills but it seems the mother did not - House's "she said birth control pills?" with an intonation of doubt suggests he may already have understood the girl's game.
Great point. Not knowing any Mandarin, it was pretty clear what the context of what the mother was saying was. It is still interesting to find out what was actually being said.
My only formal study of Mandarin was for two weeks, but I love how you handled this classic scene, so this, your first video I've ever seen, has earned you a subscription from me. Also worth noting: This sort of thing wouldn't happen in your average American hospital. They use their own interpreters instead of relying on family members, specifically to prevent emotionally-driven deceptions, like what the girl's doing here.
You are a legend. I'm not even studying Chinese, I'm just enjoying your videos because you make everything so clear and interesting. And you make me appreciate Chinese languages.
This is the best analysis ever. You take in to consideration other factors like she’s older generation and has a cold, give great examples, still react to the clip when it’s funny. Visuals for pronunciation and literal vs real translation. You really nailed this, hope you’re others are like this, think I might be about to binge watch!
That's the only reason why she's blushing.....you have your doctor telling your mom your having sex and need birth control at...15? There's a reason why most kids don't tell their family they are dating, they are embarrassing in many occasions
@@jamesmeppler6375 Well, 15+ is the year of consent in most of Europe, and also you are legally allowed to practice sex if you are 15 or older. That's different in States. Year of consent is 13+ in US, however sex is allowed at 16+ (which is also the year when you are legally allowed to drive, under some circumstances and under control). I can imagine that China will have even stricter rules, hence why the girl is embarrased.
@@CZghost age of consent for sex actually varies from State to State in the USA. The two very different examples that spring to mind are Florida (where it's never less than 16, but also becomes a math problem if one of the partners is over 18 but under 21), and California (hard limit of 18). In any US State "over 18" is safest though, since that is legal age of majority for almost everything, including buying cigarettes, gambling (including State Lottery) and voting. The last one especially is national level; changed by Constitution Amendment, as it used to be 21 right up until people got real vocal about people being enlisted in the military at age 18 but not yet being able to vote. As an interesting aside, we both do and don't have a national legal drinking age; it is technically set by the States, but everybody sets it at 21 due to a federal law that would withhold federal funds for highway maintenance from States with legal drinking ages lower than that. So it's not directly literally federal law, but it is de facto such since no State wants to lose highway funding.
There is actually a funny blooper that occurred during this scene and can be found on UA-cam (Season 1 bloopers House). It's hard to tell what happened, but it looks like Hugh Laurie (House) did not realize that the Chinese actress playing the Mother actually could speak English. In the blooper, the actress chimes in with - Excuse me. I speak English. Hugh Laurie and the "daughter" both laugh
State law (in my state) prohibits family relatives to be ad hoc interpreters. Healthcare providers are legally mandated to provide medically trained interpreters. They can be sued for malpractice if they allow a family relative to interpret.
My parents didn't speak English and when our family friend wasn't available to help (she had our own family to raise and was very busy), my siblings and I (usually me because I'm the eldest) were expected to interpret for my parents. I went to doctor and hospital appointments with my mum a lot, but because my cantonese is very limited, could only interpret the basics, but it was usually just enough to get the gist. Not ideal, but it's more common than you think. I don't live close to my mum anymore, but I have helped her with a few appointments when I visited. I have definitely never done anything like the girl in this clip did lol.
@@RaymondHng I once witnessed a super young couple, probably both 18, from moldova in a German hospital, in the emergency aerea of the Institution. it was 3 in the morning. the wife or girl friend looked like beeing 9 months pregnant. She had something, no one New what she had , and no moldovan speaker was among the staff or available.... the nurses called every member of staff and Patient... lol... with a eastern European sounding Name... If the husband could speak English or German and could have translated for his wife, would American medical ethics dictate to ignore that and instead spend time looking for a translator of a super tiny language group that has no relationship to the girl?
@@RaymondHng My brother-in-law knows maybe a hundred Korean words, and several of those are just cuss words. But he padded his resume back in the 1970s to get a government job by claiming he spoke Korean. He was called upon to be the Korean translator several times in court. I asked him how that was even possible since he doesn't speak Korean. He replied he just spoke to them slowly in simplified English. Imagine being in court and being assigned an interpreter that doesn't know how to speak the language they are supposed to be interpreting. For years I had to interpret for my wife at hospital appointments despite her English being much better than my Korean. We would take a Korean to English dictionary and an English to Korean dictionary. Now she just uses an app on her iPhone if she doesn't understand something in English. Which isn't very often since her English is better than at least 30% of adults who were born and raised in the USA.
I gave up on learning Chinese, but I love your little cultural/lunguistic crumbs you throw in. I want to learn more about nuances of Chinese culture, and this is a good way to do so.
5:23 I've watched House through countless times, and I've ALWAYS wondered what he said here!! They never did the English translation on subtitles, so it's always been a mystery...until now!! THANK YOU!! 🎉
Thank you for explaining this. I always wondered what they were really saying, and your translation and analysis adds SO much more to the comedy of these scenes.
To an English speaker, some Mandarin words “almost” match. The Mandarin (Beijing?) word for “yes” sounds like "Sher.” For years, my friend would answer “Sher, sher.” I thought she was saying “Sure, sure.” And thought nothing more about it, as it was an affirmative response. Now “no” sounded odd to me. Bu sher. The first time that I heard it, she was saying rather emphatically, and I thought she was saying “Bull shit!” Either way, a negative response. Sort of funny now, after 30 years.
That's an interesting perspective. I never thought those words sounded similar at all. In English: I always thought the word "sure" either sounded like Shore or Shir(t). And in Mandarin: I always heard the sound of "Shi" as She-eugh (sorry approximation, there seems to be no sounds that I can find in English that sounds identical to that, it always sound like the word eugh but shorter like the sound of disgust). But since you said Beijing accent, it is possible that there are "r" sounds added at the end of words. But the word for yes "Shi" just means "yes" or "to be". Adding "bu" at the beginning just means "not" or "n't". I also never really see those sounds as similar either. Bull sounds like Bowl and Bu sounds like Boo. Which are 2 different sounds.
As a "Beijingese" speaker, I affirm "Bu Shr" sounds identical(well not really but close enough) as "Bull shit". I've heard someone saying "bull shit" and thought it's someone saying "bu shi" with some kind of accent. Lol. The "shr" though, I'd say it connects better with the Spanish "si" cause some Chinese people don't distinguish "shi" and "si" orally. I felt fantastic the first time knowing Spanish "si" cuz how similar they are hahaha.
House is my favorite show ever. Having seen every episode many times, I got the gist of both conversations via body language and such. But, it's very nice to know all the specific language and translations. Especially from someone who can adequately explain the slight nuances and differences in dialects. Thanks! Totally going to follow you!
That's some great writing, that they actually bothered to get the language right but also make mistakes in places that make logical sense with the characters.
“She also seems to have a problem with an S.A.C.” “S.A.C?” “Thanks for playing. Stupid American-“ *cuts to an ad* I laughed way harder than I should’ve. 😅😂
THANK YOU!!! I really enjoyed this. Very informative. Also a kick seeing my name up in your video . I have watched the House video on youtube and there seemed to be a difference of opinion on how good Hugh Laurie's Mandarin was. Someone actually claimed that the young actress in the scene coached him on the correct pronunciation of his line. I also understand the subtext of House’s line as well. He is basically saying that the young lady is so stupid she will mess up her birth control eventually and become pregnant.
People don't realize how many Chinese speakers of several generations live and work in Los Angeles. I'm not surprised at the level of detail used in the dialog.
Thanks for this. Always good to get a "subject matter expert's" opinion on things like this, and it's nice to know that 'House' did make the effort to get things (mostly) right.
This was genuinely fascinating. I may have to check in for some more of your content, as my sister in law is Chinese and being able to have at least some conversations in Mandarin would be pretty neat.
Since I started to learn Cantonese I have forgotten most of the Mandarin I learned in the past. I thought the mother in this scene had a ‘southern’ way of speaking some words, so thank you for confirming that. Thank you for the video. It’s my first time seeing your channel, I look forward to seeing more.
@7:25 It's pretty likely that she's a Cantonese speaker. For a long time, almost all of the Chinese immigrants in America were Cantonese speakers (I think it's because the south was poorer), so the American-Chinese that have been here for several generations are Cantonese speakers. This is changing fast as more and more immigrants are Mandarin speakers, and I think Mandarin might be more common overall now. But if you grab a random, *elderly American-Chinese* person, they most likely speak Cantonese.
That not true at all, the South has always been more prosperous than Northern China. Cantonese are most prevalent overseas because they have the easiest access to the ocean
@@ultracapitalistutopia3550 "He meant 'southern US' not 'southern China'" Well, maybe -- but probably not. That wld make very little sense in context; the south of China (southeast, the coast, to be precise) is where Cantonese is concentrated; Mandarin is found more in the north. And most of the 19th & early-20th-C Chinese immigrants to the US were Cantonese spkrs.
In the largest US cities, Mandarin became more common than Cantonese 20-30 years ago. In smaller cities, it took longer, especially in regions that already had a large Cantonese-speaking population in place. I've lived in Houston, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. In Houston and Los Angeles, most of the Chinese community spoke Mandarin by 2000. In Sacramento, Cantonese was still far more common than Mandarin when I moved here in 2010, but from about 2018 onward I think I've heard more Mandarin than Cantonese.
Do you not know who Hugh Laurie is? He's English. He has a perfect American accent. He can even take it one step deeper. He can perfectly imitate an American imitating an Englishman. We want to know if he speaks Chinese without an accent.
An excellent video. (7:18) The difference between "blush" and "flush" is that the first specifically implies an emotion of some kind (i.e. shame) while the second is medical (like a fever). So humans only "blush" when they lie if they feel shame or remorse for their actions.
This is easily one of my favorite videos from you. I’ve grew up watching house cause I really didn’t have anything else to watch except this and other few shows as a teen but now being 31, love learning about different cultures and languages. I love and feel so fortunate to have people like you who provide detailed explanation and pronunciation practices. Thank you so much Jessie for your hard work on your videos! ❤
The woman is actually a native speaker and in the bloopers the director (or someone) asked a translator (i believe) to ask her something and she laughed saying "i speak english" 😂 its in the season bloopers
My daughter works as a professional translator/interpreter and happened to be home the day I watched this episode. She said basically the same thing as was talked about in this video, however MOST people don't actually speak properly anyway. It's like English, most people don't speak proper English, tons of slang, tons of slurred words (NOT slurs) etc. So despite it being grammatically incorrect, they were speaking correctly. As an aside, my daughter can speak 12 different languages at "native speaker" proficiency. She used to get paid a lot of money by other lawyers to translate for them. She was also a lawyer but found more interest in translating because of her language skills. She spent of her time going back and forth between China and Japan. (she's Japanese)
What would you say instead of 哪里哪里 that means the same thing but isn't outdated? The Chinese people I meet always give such effusive compliments. I usually just say 对的对的, in a tongue-in-cheek way. Hopefully it comes across that way instead of cocky 😅
I have the same problem. I always say 不敢当（bugandang）which apparently is even more old-fashioned or formal. At least it always makes everyone i'm with laugh so I like to use it anyway
You can also downplay the complement, like "Your cake is so good!" "Oh, I just threw it together." or "Your shirt looks so cool!" "Ah, I got it on clearance at Target."
Because of House's family moving around when he was young he learned several languages. In some scenes in various episodes hes seen reading untranslated manga.
Nice video simple and so well explained, I started learning Mandarin in January and it's exciting too see how much I already picked up. I'm a new subscriber.
This is so cool of you to do this! CC/subtitles only ever say "speaking/speaks in Chinese/Mandarin" or sometimes if they were REALLY lazy its simply "foreign language" which is incredibly unhelpful to people watching who DON'T speak the language spoken to know what the heck is going on other than context clues. Thank you so much for this video, I've wondered for years what was actually said in these scenes and now, thanks to your video, I know! ❤
Love your voice, Jessie. Where did I miss a video of you explaining why you speak perfect English with barely any accent despite it being your second language? Also, your interaction with your Cantonese partner (hubby?) is cute 🥰
Understanding what was said in that scene makes the scene way more enjoyable! I always laughed watching that scene, but knowing what was said makes it so much better xD
Many people have told me mandarin is the most difficult language for a native English speaker to learn. However you explain the differences here and my brain already understand how some of the grammar compares. Thanks for this vid, you do a wonderful job of breaking down so I, as someone who doesn’t speak Mandarin yet, can follow along 😸
I think it's even funnier when you can understand Mandarin, here's the exact translation: 0:02 "Tell him I feel breathless" 告诉他我喘不过气 0:05 "The back of my throat feels like it's burning" 喉咙后面好像有火烧 0:19 "The cough medicine I took did not help" 咳嗽药吃了没效 at 1:35 the daughter is actually translating accurately: 1:36 "I feel worse after taking the medication, it's strange" 我吃了要药更不舒服，怪怪的 1:40 "My chest is swollen" 胸部胀胀的 2:05 "What did he say was wrong with me?" 他说什么不对劲? 2:10 "He says he prescribed you the wrong medication" 他说他开了错药给你 2:23 "Congratulations, you are going to be a grandmother soon" 恭喜你快当祖母了 and then afterwards the mother repeatedly asks the daughter if she's pregnant while the daughter denies it 2:32 "What is he doing- what is he saying?" 他在做- 讲什么? "I don't know" 我不知道 "Are you pregnant?" 你是不是怀孕了? "I'm not!" 我不是!
Thanks! It is a great pair of sceens. It sounds like the show clearly did their homework. That episode is likely 15-20 years old and the woman being portrayed is likely in her 40s. As such, using an old fashion saying like na li na li would fit the circumstances. Thanks again!
I hate the chinese family tree lol. It's so confusing. When I was growing up, my maternal grandparents were 祖婆 and 祖公 while my paternal grandmother was 婆婆. Now that I'm a parent myself, I was told that my son is to call his maternal grandparents 婆婆 and 公公 and his paternal grandmother 嫲嫲. That's not even getting into the cousins, aunts and uncles!
Please please please please do Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, both Harrison Ford AND the whole opening of the show is an English musical song sang in Chinese! Very 1920s Shanghai! Haha
I really appreciate you doing this video because this has been one of my favorite scenes and house for a long period of time and I like to know the fact that they actually use real Chinese speech instead of just gibberish like they do in some more how do you say less culturally sensitive videos the fact that the Chinese pronunciation is really close or almost spot on actually makes me really happy that house was respectful of other people's cultures and didn't do the gibberish that other channels and shows would do
A most interesting video. I managed to learn a little Mandarin when I was doing a lot of business with the Chinese community in the UK. However, I've pretty much forgotten everything as I haven't used the language since I moved to Indonesia. Thank you.
it's nice to finally get the translation - that's usually dispensed with cuz it's obvious from the behavior - and the producers obviously thought the audience was intelligent to figure what's going on - but some of us are curious about the details - and appreciate when someone takes the time to provide it - 谢谢
This was absolutely excellent. If i had had access to more like this back when I was taking mandarin classes 15 years ago, I wouldnt be writing this in English.
Thanks for this. I love scenes like this in American TV shows. I didn't quite understand why you said it "backfired" though. Unless you meant in the story - she was trying to trick House, but it backfired because he understood (and even if he didn't, he'd know there's no way her mum is going through PMS) - but the way your title is worded, "Chinse Reacts... Bilingual Backfire", makes it sound like something about these scenes really didn't go down too well with Chinese audiences?
@@ChinesewithJessie oh! Gotcha. It seems someone else uploaded the clip to UA-cam and called it this. Is that where you got it from? It's from Episode 18 of series 2, called "Sleeping Dogs Lie". 😊
I like listening to videos about so many languages I think I lost track of how much languages but I actually speak french english spanish. all in all, you made me discover in the best way mandarin. Your explanations were pretty clear and I could follow even if I never learned mandarin and english is a learnt language for me. I wish you the best of the best, thank you for your work !
This explanation is fantastic, and I'm very grateful! One of my closest friends growing up was born in Hong Kong. Her grandmother was from some inner province, and spoke dialect. Nobody in San Francisco Chinatown could understand her. But when she told you you needed to eat more, you understood! 😂❤❤❤
Hugh Laurie, a british actor, speaking in an american accent, talking in mandarin. What a fricken talented actor
He also does a fake British accent in one episode. So a British actor, speaking in an American accent, talking in mandarin, who can also fake having a terrible British accent
He's also quite the bass(iirc) player
I was surprised to find out he is British . My mind was blown . 🤯
A British actor, who got the part even though the show director or whatever said no British actor, they wanted only an American so Hugh put on an American accent in his hotel bathroom for the audition and they hired him saying something like "See!? A truely talented American actor!"
That's also why Chase is Aussie. He was meant to be British, but Hugh hates people trying to do a British accent so they let the actor do their normal Aussie accent, which got a lot more women into the show because hot young Aussie doctor.
you should hear him sing and play the piano too, i bought a few of his albums already
The most useful skills in any language:
1. how to count
2. how to ask where is bathroom
3. how to say that you will be a grandmother soon
This isn't universal. In Germany the 3rd skill is how to order a beer politely: "Ein bier, bitte."
@@cmwinchell Du wirst bald Großmutter.
@@Knuckles2761 I will? That's amazing.
In all seriousness I'm tragically no longer fluent in German. As a kid I had never hear my mom speak a single word in German so I thought she didn't understand...
..and then I mouthed off to her in German, found out that you can understand a language even if you can't speak it, and that a bar of dial handsoap tastes terrible.
Before anyone says something about her being in the wrong for literally washing my mouth out with soap:
1. This was before laws that restricted punishments like that existed.
2. We live in Wichita Falls, Texas at the time.
3. To this day I don't remember what I said, but I'm surprised I'm still alive.
4. Other than a few phrases, I haven't spoken German since.
House was obviously lying about having limited Mandarin skills (common with House) and was some level of fluent. He was following the conversation each time, knew the girl was lying and "mis-translating" and the mother was a pawn.
@@brianstraight9308 Not necessarily. He might have just caught the words for "wrong prescription" 😁
Hear me out. Since he's a doctor, it's implied the reason he knew the phrase to congratulate someone on pregnancy is because he would only know basic doctor lingo aside from the basics. That could include "wrong prescription".
He didn't know enough mandarin to explain to the mom what happened, so that was likely the closest he was able to say to hint at the birth control pills. Or at the very least get the mom to suspect the daughter was perhaps not being too candid with her translations.
The detail in this scene always impressed me. The mom uses "correct", informal (if dated) language, the girl can speak pretty well but is clearly translating from her native tongue (English) because she's born in the US, and House's Mandarin is good but very formal... as if he's learnt it primarily to be able to understand Chinese medical books/lectures.
Part of House's backstory is that his dad was military and he was stationed in china when House was a child/teenager
That would explain why House would know a word like "grandmother" if inheritable diseases came up.
They missed a crucial detail that House would never have passed up the opportunity in the first visit of revealing he knew Mandarin and being a snarky ahole
@@ecMathGeek Plus, I think he gets more joy in waiting for his big reveal. He's often very selective in when/how he cuts peoples' legs out from under them in order to obtain the maximum effect.
@@rwwilson21 I think you have it wrong. If I remember correctly, his dad was stationed in Japan. Besides, the US doesn't have a military base in China so his dad couldn't have been stationed there. House knows how much venom random snakes have so I wouldn't be surprised that he learned Mandarin just for the heck of it 😂
I am pleased to hear that Hugh Laurie's Mandarin was at least passable, although I would not have expected any less from such a great actor.
Well the accent was pretty bad and he did mispronounce some words, which would have changed the meaning. So really....it's the people who wrote the script that made it easy for him to say or his voice coaches.
These reaction videos never have the full clip either.
Chinese is actually really really...easy to say when it's written down, plus British people invaded China during the opium wars, so many have experience in Chinese, over in England today. But with so much history and languages it's easy to assume
@@jamesmeppler6375 I don' think there's too many people left who were in China for the Opium wars - more likely ex pat's who had been in Hong Kong.
An English actor speaking Chinese with a fake American accent...
@@karlbassett8485
Hugh Laurie is a great actor.
@@karlbassett8485
He plays also very good guitar and piano.
I think the direct translation of the girl's line when she lies by saying he gave her the wrong meds is a brilliant detail. She appears to be US-born, and therefore much less proficient. Much of her sentences might naturally end up being direct translations if she learned the language more through studying rather than daily exposure.
She's lying about the meds because she's there to get birth control for herself. This is why people need to watch the show to understand the context. She's not "misunderstanding" she's outright lying because she knows the old lady can't understand English and she's using that to her advantage to lie to the doctor and get the meds SHE wants.
That old lady's the girls mom lol
@@alexpadilla9713 Many first generation Americans have no idea how to speak their mother tongue despite being around it all the time. Others end up learning it over time via books and courses.
@@MihaelLawliet01 Just goes to show how quickly she adapted to being american.
@@ShiroKage009 i am a first gen german american and i can understand german to an extent but cant speak it will my mom never had us speaking it at home
I just love how Dr House was cool with her deceiving her mom.
But had enough when she tried to put the blame on him. 😆
I love this scene. (If you try to throw House under the bus, he WILL Uno-Reverse Card you & throw YOU under the bus!)
Also, nice video. I did not know that they were speaking (mostly) proper Mandarin. (I "suspected" though, since it sounded pretty legit to my Gaijin ears.)
@@sharkdentures3247
"mostly proper Mandarin".
You have to hand it to Hugh Laurie, he needed as a Brit fake an American accent as well while speaking Mandarin ^^
I think it might be even more than that, though. House was fine with her deceiving her mom to get BC pills, probably because he knows, as a doctor, that when "traditional" families try to keep teens from accessing contraceptives in order to keep them from having sex, the strategy often backfires spectacularly (hi, GOP states with abstinence-only sex ed and the nation's highest teen pregnancy and STD rates!). But when he realized that the girl was too incompetent to manage to sneak herself BC on the sly, he decided blowing-up her spot and dragging everything into the open was the best thing for everyone.
Plus, y'know, the whole "I tried to help you, kid; try to screw me, and this is what you get" thing.
@@michaelccozensthat's why traditional asian families have lower birth out of wedlock birth rates than western nations?
@@obcane3072 lol multigenerational housing prob has something to do with it also
There’s a really funny blooper from this scene where the actress playing the mom just says, “Excuse me, I speak English!”
Link? Please
ua-cam.com/video/imc3oU_HiVk/v-deo.html at 4:55
@@lyingcat9022 ua-cam.com/video/imc3oU_HiVk/v-deo.html
@@lyingcat9022 ua-cam.com/video/imc3oU_HiVk/v-deo.html
@Drew Taylor I can assure you that you'll eventually find it online somewhere. Pirates never sleep.
The fact a show got this kind of detail not only right, but also paid enough attention to detail to have enough of a difference in dialect from a native speaker to a second hand native speaker (not born in the country but uses the language at home) is an amazing detail that I am shocked to see from House. Good on the show writers for that one.
you need birth control pills for your pms🤣🤣🤣
@@SaraMorgan-ym6ue I was more talking about how they performed the Chinese language correctly in the show
It's almost a miracle. Just look how many hispanics there are in the USA and they still manage to butcher spanish in almost every show.
As a language enthusiast, I really appreciated the detail in this scene. I constantly see shows and movies mess up things so terribly. In some cases, I think man if you got someone that even just knew the language a little it would be way better
How do you start a new language? I started studying japanese some months ago but i got a little bored with the book which i was using (marugoto) and i found that it was easier using anki(core 2k) for vocabulary, you got any tips on how I can study more efficiently? And is it the same method for every language? I was thinking of studying Chinese after, then the last question is it possible to study 2 languages at the same time like Mandarin and Japanese or is it better to tske 1 at a time?
@@svenskaspelarenkubaren6901 I travel a lot and get bored with a language fast so I change often. Personally I like mixing a lot of different little things (shows, videos, apps, reading, speaking to people, etc.) but honestly it is really up to how you learn best. Many people spend a lot of time researching methods instead of doing anything so anything that keeps you somewhat consistent is valuable.
@@svenskaspelarenkubaren6901 i think, learning two languages on the same level is inefficient (I mean, if you just started learning one and right after that the second one), especially, if they are languages of the same language family like Japanese and Chinese. 'Cause you will be confusing which is which and not really making a progress in both, i guess.
Of course, stadying chinese characters will help in studying Japanese but at the beginning it will be confusing.
So, I suppose, you should be like somewhat confident in that you're studying the one language right and that you understand how this language actually works, and only then start another one.
That's my opinion.
But one's definitely sure, you have to find out which way of learning is better for you (as for me, I need a teacher to guide me, esp for Chinese, and a lot of practice).
@@Anna-vb2pj Japanese and Chinese aren't in the same language family, there are a few theories on where Japanese originates from a popular one is that korean and Japanese are somehow related but it could also be that Japanese forms it's own language family,
However Japanese has a lot of chinese loan words which may be why it seems like they(Japanese and Chinese) are related but these come from mostly middle chinese or older forms of the chinese languages and so do the kanji representing those words also every kanji can have multiple readings.
@@svenskaspelarenkubaren6901 same... especially when here in georgia, the japanese community is more hidden than the rest of the asian communities or their children don't speak the language. kinda hard to start speaking when there's nobody to converse with. i'm korean and i speak korean so i thought learning japanese would be easy because of the similar loan words and grammar structure. but it was a lot harder than i thought. still learning
The reason the girl was "mistranslating" in the first scene is because she was there to get birth control pills for herself.
Woah, thanks!
I wouldn't have caught that if you didn't point it out!
She is not translating, she is interpreting (badly). Translation means going from text to text, or speech to text. When the product is speech or signs, that's interpreting.
@@jaimeh387 Translation isn't defined by text to text, and has multiple definitions that fit what the commenter is saying. The main two being:
a conversion of one thing to another,
and a conversion of one language into another (regardless of the medium in which it is done).
Interpreting is synonymous with translating.
Additionally, "misinterpreting" is "misunderstanding", so saying "mistranslating" makes more sense. Unless they said they were "deliberately misinterpreting", but that still sounds as though they were "deliberately misunderstanding", as opposed to "deliberately mistranslating the language".
Before correcting someone it is wise to do a bit more research on what you are correcting them on.
Really? You're a genius. I didn't realize that.
@@QuackUp While Jaime's definition is overly restrictive, interpretation is *not* synonymous with translating. Interpretation generally refers to the subfield of real time translation. That is mostly applied to verbal communication, but can be applied to other forms as well (sign language, chat).
The mother using older/archaic phrases is a nice little detail. Immigrants who have lived abroad for decades don't have the exposure to the natural cultural evolution of their native language and so end up sounding like they are from a different era.
I grew up in Greece and met many Greek Americans an Greek Australians in my day. They often use *really* old words/phrases when speaking in Greek because that's what their parents would say, whereas for me, I have only heard them form either my grandparents generation, or in black/white films from the 60s.
That's happened in Polish. There's a word for 'kiss' that 100+ years ago meant 'a peck on the cheek' like you give your grandmother. It now means a lovers kiss that is not on the lips.
You can imagine the confusion😱😂
I can confirm. The German spoken in Wisconsin is closer to 1800s German than 2000s German. Also, growing up in backwoods Wisconsin I grew up with the 1800s rules for Sheepshead. As an adult, I was surprised to learn that the rules had evolved. Basically, it isn't just the language that remains constant.
It's common in former colonies I think. Cajun French and Quebecois French are very old French to people who live in France.
I know someone in my mom's church, grew up in the US, but once went to China for a business trip. People kept asking why he sounded like their grandparents.
This is also why Italian-Americans speak so differently from people in Italy. Not only did a lot of them immigrate from Italy a long time ago, Italy only standardized their language after 1861 (when the country unified) and the everyday spoken language didn't start to homogenize until radio and TV came along. 1910 Sicilian would be almost unrecognizable to someone who grew up in today's Italy.
By the way, there is another episode of House MD where House speaks Mandarin. The episode is called "Risky Business" (Season 08, Episode 04), and it's about a CEO who does business in China. They also briefly talk about perceptions of mental illness in China, and I'd like to hear your take on it.
I was hoping that's what this video would be about not gonna lie since I already knew the girl was lying and not badly interpreting her mother on accident.
Im stunned at how accurate everyone is in those two scenes, you always expect it to just be gibberish that sounds close enough but the directors behind house really went thr extra mile
I don't understand though why it would be so difficult for a teenage girl to get birth control in a country like America that she has to go through all these hoops.
@Udontknowmi thats the joke. She went through the most difficult path because she wasn't thinking and is why house outs her. She was being stupid, wasted his time, and then fucked it up. Makes sense when you think about how nervous she was to ask house about it and the shit she got into after. Sure she couldve gotten it easier but she wasn't going to ask for herself and certainly wasn't smart enough to check a drugstore
Dr. House's maxim is that everyone lies; he's more interested in why people do what they do rather than what they say. It would have actually made more sense if he had no idea what the woman was saying.
House was played by comedian/actor/musician Hugh Laurie affecting an American accent. He's very entertaining!
Yup. The girl was utterly stupid to try to fool Dr. House 😂 but again, as an actress, she did well
I think the fact that we ultimately discover that he can speak (some) Chinese actually works well in the context of another aspect of the series, though: At first, he seems to be an incredibly skilled detective, expertly surmising exactly what's wrong with her just by observing little clues and never having to be told anything. But as anyone who's watched the series for a while knows, House actually isn't really "a brilliant medical detective" as much as he's just really good at cutting through BS, and using all the tricks at his disposal to make things turn out right in the end, and make it seem like that was his plan all along.
This is so exactly like him, too, to pretend to be deducing everything in this amazing display of deductive reasoning, when he actually didn't even need to because he secretly just actually understood what she was saying from the beginning but just didn't feel it necessary to tell anyone that.
@@foogod4237 It really is more of a detective show than a medical one, that was the intention from the beginning. The pitch of the show to my understanding was basically "What if Sherlock Holmes was a doctor instead of private detective?" This shows up not just in the detective aspect, but also his relationship with W**son. It is sort of interesting to think of this methodology - pretending to be an amazingly deductive doctor in a way that can cause people to inadvertently reveal clues he can dig up. And note how much of his investigation is based not on medical symptoms, but looking at the person's life, backstory, activities, home, and so on. I don't get the sense that's particularly realistic (most medical cases are surely far more mundane) but it makes for a very interesting show.
@@quillmaurer6563 what'll bake your noodle later on is, Sherlock Holmes was BASED on a doctor that Doyle knew at the time, they even make a joke about it in the show(the doctor Holmes is based on)
@@Guardian582 So you're saying this show's fictional doctor is inspired by a fictional detective, who in turn was inspired by a real doctor?
re "This is pretty good" 5:43
House is known for being sacarstic. The prior two lines are not meant to be taken literally. He speaks "fluent" Mandarin, at least according to the show. He was fully conversing with another Chinese lady in the espisode where he cooks. That scene was super funny too.
The daughter was trying to get birth control pills, that is why she was not translating what the mother is saying.
I think that's obvious, but what I don't understand is (1) Why would a teenage girl think this would work, especially if her mother is strict? (2) How would pills react this fast? (3) I thought safe sex is promoted in America so why does she need to go through all these hoops?
@@Udontknowmi teens make awful choices all the time. Many areas in the US teach abstinence only, so the schools are not allowed to teach anything about birth control
House always knew more than he let on, especially in this scene. Outside of context clues he already knew what the mother actually said.
In the first scene the kid mentioned birth control pills but it seems the mother did not - House's "she said birth control pills?" with an intonation of doubt suggests he may already have understood the girl's game.
Great point. Not knowing any Mandarin, it was pretty clear what the context of what the mother was saying was. It is still interesting to find out what was actually being said.
My only formal study of Mandarin was for two weeks, but I love how you handled this classic scene, so this, your first video I've ever seen, has earned you a subscription from me.
Also worth noting: This sort of thing wouldn't happen in your average American hospital. They use their own interpreters instead of relying on family members, specifically to prevent emotionally-driven deceptions, like what the girl's doing here.
You are a legend. I'm not even studying Chinese, I'm just enjoying your videos because you make everything so clear and interesting. And you make me appreciate Chinese languages.
This is the best analysis ever. You take in to consideration other factors like she’s older generation and has a cold, give great examples, still react to the clip when it’s funny. Visuals for pronunciation and literal vs real translation. You really nailed this, hope you’re others are like this, think I might be about to binge watch!
I think she’s blushing from embarrassment, not because she’s lying.
I mean that too
That's the only reason why she's blushing.....you have your doctor telling your mom your having sex and need birth control at...15?
There's a reason why most kids don't tell their family they are dating, they are embarrassing in many occasions
Potentially the stress due to being confronted suddenly with being found out would cause her face to flush too.
@@jamesmeppler6375 Well, 15+ is the year of consent in most of Europe, and also you are legally allowed to practice sex if you are 15 or older. That's different in States. Year of consent is 13+ in US, however sex is allowed at 16+ (which is also the year when you are legally allowed to drive, under some circumstances and under control). I can imagine that China will have even stricter rules, hence why the girl is embarrased.
@@CZghost age of consent for sex actually varies from State to State in the USA.
The two very different examples that spring to mind are Florida (where it's never less than 16, but also becomes a math problem if one of the partners is over 18 but under 21), and California (hard limit of 18). In any US State "over 18" is safest though, since that is legal age of majority for almost everything, including buying cigarettes, gambling (including State Lottery) and voting. The last one especially is national level; changed by Constitution Amendment, as it used to be 21 right up until people got real vocal about people being enlisted in the military at age 18 but not yet being able to vote.
As an interesting aside, we both do and don't have a national legal drinking age; it is technically set by the States, but everybody sets it at 21 due to a federal law that would withhold federal funds for highway maintenance from States with legal drinking ages lower than that. So it's not directly literally federal law, but it is de facto such since no State wants to lose highway funding.
There is actually a funny blooper that occurred during this scene and can be found on UA-cam (Season 1 bloopers House). It's hard to tell what happened, but it looks like Hugh Laurie (House) did not realize that the Chinese actress playing the Mother actually could speak English. In the blooper, the actress chimes in with - Excuse me. I speak English. Hugh Laurie and the "daughter" both laugh
interesting !
m.ua-cam.com/video/imc3oU_HiVk/v-deo.html&pp=ygUdRHIgaG91c2UgY2hpbmVzZSBtb20gYmxsb3BlcnM%3D
Around 4:50. I got curious lol
The blooper is in this link. ua-cam.com/video/imc3oU_HiVk/v-deo.html&ab_channel=HouseM.D.
This is why ideally family members shouldn’t translate.
State law (in my state) prohibits family relatives to be ad hoc interpreters. Healthcare providers are legally mandated to provide medically trained interpreters. They can be sued for malpractice if they allow a family relative to interpret.
Medical ethics also stipulate that family members can’t be patients as well
My parents didn't speak English and when our family friend wasn't available to help (she had our own family to raise and was very busy), my siblings and I (usually me because I'm the eldest) were expected to interpret for my parents. I went to doctor and hospital appointments with my mum a lot, but because my cantonese is very limited, could only interpret the basics, but it was usually just enough to get the gist. Not ideal, but it's more common than you think. I don't live close to my mum anymore, but I have helped her with a few appointments when I visited. I have definitely never done anything like the girl in this clip did lol.
@@RaymondHng I once witnessed a super young couple, probably both 18, from moldova in a German hospital, in the emergency aerea of the Institution. it was 3 in the morning. the wife or girl friend looked like beeing 9 months pregnant.
She had something, no one New what she had , and no moldovan speaker was among the staff or available....
the nurses called every member of staff and Patient... lol... with a eastern European sounding Name...
If the husband could speak English or German and could have translated for his wife, would American medical ethics dictate to ignore that and instead spend time looking for a translator of a super tiny language group that has no relationship to the girl?
@@RaymondHng My brother-in-law knows maybe a hundred Korean words, and several of those are just cuss words. But he padded his resume back in the 1970s to get a government job by claiming he spoke Korean. He was called upon to be the Korean translator several times in court. I asked him how that was even possible since he doesn't speak Korean. He replied he just spoke to them slowly in simplified English. Imagine being in court and being assigned an interpreter that doesn't know how to speak the language they are supposed to be interpreting.
For years I had to interpret for my wife at hospital appointments despite her English being much better than my Korean. We would take a Korean to English dictionary and an English to Korean dictionary. Now she just uses an app on her iPhone if she doesn't understand something in English. Which isn't very often since her English is better than at least 30% of adults who were born and raised in the USA.
I recommend you look up the blooper for this scene. The older actress said after several takes “excuse me, I speak English”
I gave up on learning Chinese, but I love your little cultural/lunguistic crumbs you throw in.
I want to learn more about nuances of Chinese culture, and this is a good way to do so.
5:23 I've watched House through countless times, and I've ALWAYS wondered what he said here!! They never did the English translation on subtitles, so it's always been a mystery...until now!! THANK YOU!! 🎉
7:50 give my dudes more screen time 😂
I wouldn't doubt House specifically learned how to tell the older lady she'd be a grandma soon. It would fit his personality.
Thank you for explaining this. I always wondered what they were really saying, and your translation and analysis adds SO much more to the comedy of these scenes.
To an English speaker, some Mandarin words “almost” match. The Mandarin (Beijing?) word for “yes” sounds like "Sher.” For years, my friend would answer “Sher, sher.” I thought she was saying “Sure, sure.” And thought nothing more about it, as it was an affirmative response. Now “no” sounded odd to me. Bu sher. The first time that I heard it, she was saying rather emphatically, and I thought she was saying “Bull shit!” Either way, a negative response. Sort of funny now, after 30 years.
That's an interesting perspective. I never thought those words sounded similar at all.
In English: I always thought the word "sure" either sounded like Shore or Shir(t).
And in Mandarin: I always heard the sound of "Shi" as She-eugh (sorry approximation, there seems to be no sounds that I can find in English that sounds identical to that, it always sound like the word eugh but shorter like the sound of disgust).
But since you said Beijing accent, it is possible that there are "r" sounds added at the end of words.
But the word for yes "Shi" just means "yes" or "to be".
Adding "bu" at the beginning just means "not" or "n't".
I also never really see those sounds as similar either.
Bull sounds like Bowl and Bu sounds like Boo. Which are 2 different sounds.
As a "Beijingese" speaker, I affirm "Bu Shr" sounds identical(well not really but close enough) as "Bull shit". I've heard someone saying "bull shit" and thought it's someone saying "bu shi" with some kind of accent. Lol.
The "shr" though, I'd say it connects better with the Spanish "si" cause some Chinese people don't distinguish "shi" and "si" orally.
I felt fantastic the first time knowing Spanish "si" cuz how similar they are hahaha.
@@roselylez Spanish "si" sounds more like Mandarin "xi" to me...
@@blenderpain8249 yes, adding r sounds to the end of words is very much a Beijing thing. Shi becomes shir, na li becomes nar, chuan becomes chuar, etc
@@roselylez no, the Spanish “si” is pronounced like the English “see”
House is my favorite show ever. Having seen every episode many times, I got the gist of both conversations via body language and such.
But, it's very nice to know all the specific language and translations. Especially from someone who can adequately explain the slight nuances and differences in dialects.
Thanks! Totally going to follow you!
The scene is planned for you to understand it without speaking any Mandarin.
She deliberatelly misinterpreted what her Mom was saying.
Really??
No way!
That's some great writing, that they actually bothered to get the language right but also make mistakes in places that make logical sense with the characters.
Lee is the MAN! Love that guy. He's quick and has a good grasp of both. An absolute asset to Mandarin/Cantonese comprehension when I am watching!
“She also seems to have a problem with an S.A.C.”
“S.A.C?”
“Thanks for playing. Stupid American-“ *cuts to an ad*
I laughed way harder than I should’ve. 😅😂
This is genius Chinese teaching. Amazing job lady
THANK YOU!!! I really enjoyed this. Very informative. Also a kick seeing my name up in your video . I have watched the House video on youtube and there seemed to be a difference of opinion on how good Hugh Laurie's Mandarin was. Someone actually claimed that the young actress in the scene coached him on the correct pronunciation of his line. I also understand the subtext of House’s line as well. He is basically saying that the young lady is so stupid she will mess up her birth control eventually and become pregnant.
People don't realize how many Chinese speakers of several generations live and work in Los Angeles. I'm not surprised at the level of detail used in the dialog.
Thanks for this. Always good to get a "subject matter expert's" opinion on things like this, and it's nice to know that 'House' did make the effort to get things (mostly) right.
This was genuinely fascinating. I may have to check in for some more of your content, as my sister in law is Chinese and being able to have at least some conversations in Mandarin would be pretty neat.
Thank you. I've always wondered what was said here and I appreciate all the time and nuance you showed
Since I started to learn Cantonese I have forgotten most of the Mandarin I learned in the past. I thought the mother in this scene had a ‘southern’ way of speaking some words, so thank you for confirming that. Thank you for the video. It’s my first time seeing your channel, I look forward to seeing more.
@7:25 It's pretty likely that she's a Cantonese speaker. For a long time, almost all of the Chinese immigrants in America were Cantonese speakers (I think it's because the south was poorer), so the American-Chinese that have been here for several generations are Cantonese speakers. This is changing fast as more and more immigrants are Mandarin speakers, and I think Mandarin might be more common overall now. But if you grab a random, *elderly American-Chinese* person, they most likely speak Cantonese.
That not true at all, the South has always been more prosperous than Northern China. Cantonese are most prevalent overseas because they have the easiest access to the ocean
no it was not because the south was poorer
@@zacharyyan4898 He meant "southern US" not "southern China"...
@@ultracapitalistutopia3550 "He meant 'southern US' not 'southern China'"
Well, maybe -- but probably not. That wld make very little sense in context; the south of China (southeast, the coast, to be precise) is where Cantonese is concentrated; Mandarin is found more in the north. And most of the 19th & early-20th-C Chinese immigrants to the US were Cantonese spkrs.
In the largest US cities, Mandarin became more common than Cantonese 20-30 years ago. In smaller cities, it took longer, especially in regions that already had a large Cantonese-speaking population in place. I've lived in Houston, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. In Houston and Los Angeles, most of the Chinese community spoke Mandarin by 2000. In Sacramento, Cantonese was still far more common than Mandarin when I moved here in 2010, but from about 2018 onward I think I've heard more Mandarin than Cantonese.
Thank you, thank you. I LOVED House. Nice to hear it did pretty well.
1) correctly predicted URI
2) realized that the meds got swapped
House would be proud of her diagnostics
Do you not know who Hugh Laurie is? He's English. He has a perfect American accent. He can even take it one step deeper. He can perfectly imitate an American imitating an Englishman. We want to know if he speaks Chinese without an accent.
An excellent video.
(7:18) The difference between "blush" and "flush" is that the first specifically implies an emotion of some kind (i.e. shame) while the second is medical (like a fever). So humans only "blush" when they lie if they feel shame or remorse for their actions.
This is easily one of my favorite videos from you. I’ve grew up watching house cause I really didn’t have anything else to watch except this and other few shows as a teen but now being 31, love learning about different cultures and languages. I love and feel so fortunate to have people like you who provide detailed explanation and pronunciation practices. Thank you so much Jessie for your hard work on your videos! ❤
One of my favorite House scenes and episodes!
What ep
The woman is actually a native speaker and in the bloopers the director (or someone) asked a translator (i believe) to ask her something and she laughed saying "i speak english" 😂 its in the season bloopers
I always loved those scenes in that episode.... some of the best of the series...
I love House MD, and I’m fascinated by languages! This was a great video
- Thanks for sharing!
My daughter works as a professional translator/interpreter and happened to be home the day I watched this episode. She said basically the same thing as was talked about in this video, however MOST people don't actually speak properly anyway. It's like English, most people don't speak proper English, tons of slang, tons of slurred words (NOT slurs) etc. So despite it being grammatically incorrect, they were speaking correctly. As an aside, my daughter can speak 12 different languages at "native speaker" proficiency. She used to get paid a lot of money by other lawyers to translate for them. She was also a lawyer but found more interest in translating because of her language skills. She spent of her time going back and forth between China and Japan. (she's Japanese)
The actress who played the "stupid American child" was 23 when this was filmed. She is now 41.
What would you say instead of 哪里哪里 that means the same thing but isn't outdated?
The Chinese people I meet always give such effusive compliments. I usually just say 对的对的, in a tongue-in-cheek way. Hopefully it comes across that way instead of cocky 😅
There are many ways to respond depending on the situation, I'll make a follow-up video on this soon!
I have the same problem. I always say 不敢当（bugandang）which apparently is even more old-fashioned or formal. At least it always makes everyone i'm with laugh so I like to use it anyway
@@Sam-ni5lb It definitely does sound like you're half joking when you say 不敢当 😂
You can also downplay the complement, like "Your cake is so good!" "Oh, I just threw it together." or "Your shirt looks so cool!" "Ah, I got it on clearance at Target."
Because of House's family moving around when he was young he learned several languages. In some scenes in various episodes hes seen reading untranslated manga.
Nice video simple and so well explained, I started learning Mandarin in January and it's exciting too see how much I already picked up. I'm a new subscriber.
People rarely blush when lying, but it would make sense if she was embarrassed.
thanks.. I've been trying to learn Chinese for ages and get stuck, IM sure I could learn better if I see what's being said like that :)
House is one of my favorite TV shows. These scenes shows how brilliant his character is. But also shows how pretty the Chinese language is.
I've always wanted to know what was said in this scene! Thank you for the in-depth education, Jessie! :)
This is so cool of you to do this! CC/subtitles only ever say "speaking/speaks in Chinese/Mandarin" or sometimes if they were REALLY lazy its simply "foreign language" which is incredibly unhelpful to people watching who DON'T speak the language spoken to know what the heck is going on other than context clues. Thank you so much for this video, I've wondered for years what was actually said in these scenes and now, thanks to your video, I know! ❤
You have a good personality for teaching :) I was entertained while learning which is hard to do!
I'm so glad to finally know what they were saying in mandarin
Love your voice, Jessie. Where did I miss a video of you explaining why you speak perfect English with barely any accent despite it being your second language? Also, your interaction with your Cantonese partner (hubby?) is cute 🥰
I had assumed they were only speaking something that sounded like Mandarin. I didn't expect them to actually be speaking Mandarin. Nice detail.
Understanding what was said in that scene makes the scene way more enjoyable! I always laughed watching that scene, but knowing what was said makes it so much better xD
Many people have told me mandarin is the most difficult language for a native English speaker to learn. However you explain the differences here and my brain already understand how some of the grammar compares. Thanks for this vid, you do a wonderful job of breaking down so I, as someone who doesn’t speak Mandarin yet, can follow along 😸
I think it's even funnier when you can understand Mandarin, here's the exact translation: 0:02 "Tell him I feel breathless" 告诉他我喘不过气 0:05 "The back of my throat feels like it's burning" 喉咙后面好像有火烧 0:19 "The cough medicine I took did not help" 咳嗽药吃了没效 at 1:35 the daughter is actually translating accurately: 1:36 "I feel worse after taking the medication, it's strange" 我吃了要药更不舒服，怪怪的 1:40 "My chest is swollen" 胸部胀胀的 2:05 "What did he say was wrong with me?" 他说什么不对劲? 2:10 "He says he prescribed you the wrong medication" 他说他开了错药给你 2:23 "Congratulations, you are going to be a grandmother soon" 恭喜你快当祖母了 and then afterwards the mother repeatedly asks the daughter if she's pregnant while the daughter denies it 2:32 "What is he doing- what is he saying?" 他在做- 讲什么? "I don't know" 我不知道 "Are you pregnant?" 你是不是怀孕了? "I'm not!" 我不是!
Thanks! It is a great pair of sceens. It sounds like the show clearly did their homework. That episode is likely 15-20 years old and the woman being portrayed is likely in her 40s. As such, using an old fashion saying like na li na li would fit the circumstances.
Thanks again!
His dang in "当祖母‘’ sounded more like "dong." Still pretty impressive though for being a non Mandarin learner.
This scene is now so much better in this context with this background, thanks!
I hate the chinese family tree lol. It's so confusing. When I was growing up, my maternal grandparents were 祖婆 and 祖公 while my paternal grandmother was 婆婆. Now that I'm a parent myself, I was told that my son is to call his maternal grandparents 婆婆 and 公公 and his paternal grandmother 嫲嫲. That's not even getting into the cousins, aunts and uncles!
I love House and cracked up when he busted out a full sentence. Glad to hear his pronunciation was actually pretty good!
Please please please please do Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, both Harrison Ford AND the whole opening of the show is an English musical song sang in Chinese! Very 1920s Shanghai! Haha
I really appreciate you doing this video because this has been one of my favorite scenes and house for a long period of time and I like to know the fact that they actually use real Chinese speech instead of just gibberish like they do in some more how do you say less culturally sensitive videos the fact that the Chinese pronunciation is really close or almost spot on actually makes me really happy that house was respectful of other people's cultures and didn't do the gibberish that other channels and shows would do
Can you do a video about Duolingo and their accuracy with Mandarin ?
A most interesting video. I managed to learn a little Mandarin when I was doing a lot of business with the Chinese community in the UK. However, I've pretty much forgotten everything as I haven't used the language since I moved to Indonesia. Thank you.
peter to tony stark: 2:38
Just now seeing this. So cool!! Thank you for translating and explaining the differences. 💖
I find family in Mandarin really hard
it's nice to finally get the translation - that's usually dispensed with cuz it's obvious from the behavior - and the producers obviously thought the audience was intelligent to figure what's going on - but some of us are curious about the details - and appreciate when someone takes the time to provide it - 谢谢
0:29 But everybody lies!
This was absolutely excellent. If i had had access to more like this back when I was taking mandarin classes 15 years ago, I wouldnt be writing this in English.
Thanks for this. I love scenes like this in American TV shows. I didn't quite understand why you said it "backfired" though. Unless you meant in the story - she was trying to trick House, but it backfired because he understood (and even if he didn't, he'd know there's no way her mum is going through PMS) - but the way your title is worded, "Chinse Reacts... Bilingual Backfire", makes it sound like something about these scenes really didn't go down too well with Chinese audiences?
Ohhhh I thought "House MD: Bilingual Backfire"was the episode's name or something lol
@@ChinesewithJessie oh! Gotcha. It seems someone else uploaded the clip to UA-cam and called it this. Is that where you got it from?
It's from Episode 18 of series 2, called "Sleeping Dogs Lie". 😊
Love the breakdown and the detailed explanations of pronunciations.
Could you do a video of the 2010 version of "The Karate Kid?"
I like listening to videos about so many languages I think I lost track of how much languages but I actually speak french english spanish.
all in all, you made me discover in the best way mandarin. Your explanations were pretty clear and I could follow even if I never learned mandarin and english is a learnt language for me.
I wish you the best of the best, thank you for your work !
很喜欢看视频学语言的方式
That was so cool! Thank you.
I've seen this scene before to illustrate Chinese language; thing is I just noticed
that child looks like 11 or 12 right?!?
If she looks 11 or 12 to you then you need to get your eyes checked.
she is probably 16 to 18 for the character in the show but in real life she can be up to age 25.
Oh my gosh, you are a great language instructor, you explain and repeat the words so we have more than one opportunity to hear it.
This explanation is fantastic, and I'm very grateful! One of my closest friends growing up was born in Hong Kong. Her grandmother was from some inner province, and spoke dialect. Nobody in San Francisco Chinatown could understand her. But when she told you you needed to eat more, you understood! 😂❤❤❤
Thank you so much for posting this video!! You rock!!
Thank you so much for this breakdown! I learned a lot!
The grandmas madarin was pretty good, most films they dont even try
Fun scene, but I really enjoyed your commentary too!
i just happen to find this video. i am more impressed with your English while translating it into Chinese! you have the best of both worlds! wow!😯😄👍
Why am I not surprised that Hugh Laurie can pronounce chinese well? This dude is awesome with accents!!!
3:10 i think the word period in chinese is diff around the word. In malaysia, we call it 月经, translated to minthly cycle