Is Mandarin a Polite and Fancy Language?

I have heard from my teachers that Japanese, Korean, British-English, and French are 'Fancy Languages', because they don't sound harsh when spoken, and are well mannered.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am and is filed under Chinese Mandarin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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9 Responses to “Is Mandarin a Polite and Fancy Language?”

  1. brendan y. Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    i dont think so, to me it sounds like they’re yelling at each when they speak because they have to emphasize the tones in the word

  2. 7LDQDoller7 Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    yeh well i would consider mandarin as a polite language. its defiantly more polite than canto. canto has way more slang in my opinion n its like more rude when u listen to ppls when they talk canto.

  3. RE Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    It is surprising that teachers like yours still exist in this day and age. Languages do not have manners; people do. And every country has decent people and rude people, including Japan, Korea, Great Britain, France, and China.

  4. PUddings! ε(●¸̃•̃)з Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    Mandarin is a very polite language.

    however, for those who aren’t speakers may think the opposite just because of certain words, they have to use tones that are high-pitched (remember? there are 4 different tones!) that’s why it may sounds a bit harsh.. but it’s actually not.

  5. ぽっちゃりしたヤジローベ君の刀ですからきれないんだろうな Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    for sound I thiunk it sounds polite….
    you can try to listen to Mandarin songs (FIR is nice music band).

  6. Leva Mei Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    oh no, darling. a language does not only rely on tones and such to be considered polite. there should be proper words involved.
    like in the Japanese, they have -san -kun -chan senpai and etc as a prefix to someone’s last name to indicate if they are a boy, girl, senior etc. and since they call each other by their last names, how polite can they get?

    same with koreans. they have noona, magnae/maknae, hyung etc. even though they might sound abrupt and loud, they make up for it these words.

    Filipinos are considered polite as well not only in terms of language but also in actions. they have po and opo which u say after every sentence when talking to an elder. also have ate (big sister), kuya (big brother) etc.

    Mandarin has only a few of those words that signify "respect" and "politeness" though they also have the same as those for how u call relatives but nothing more.. put it together with the way they talk and u have one scary conversation.

    but please do not judge Chinese people for the way they talk. heck, don’t judge anyone by the language they speak. Hope i helped! have a fun weekend!

  7. Elena S Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    not really…
    there is no word "please" in Chinese…
    so you can’t say "give me that, please, please, please, ple-e-e-e-ease"…
    what kind of politeness is that then?…

  8. hongjing_liu Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    As far as i am concerned, Mandarin is a very polite language.

    Mandarin is China’s official language; audience reach is relatively large, which is related to all people of our country, so it is universal and extensive.

    Answer from Jennifer Zhu, Professional Chinese Teacher from eChineseLearning
    Live Teachers from China!
    http://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial/index.html?ecl=ptEEEEEEya110605

  9. Steph K Says:
    November 15th, 2009 at 4:52 am

    Not to be rude to your teachers, but they are clearly bias in their opinions of what the presume as a "Fancy Language".

    I can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Japanese, and Korean and it sounds fine. Again not to insult your teachers, but they don’t seem to be educated enough if they can make comments like what is a fancy language just by the way it sounds.

    Personally I don’t think there is such a thing as a "Fancy Language". It depends on the person that speaks it. No matter what language you speak, there are going to be rude people and polite people.

    You should remind your teachers that those aren’t the only well mannered languages out there. But then again this whole kind of idea is a very personal thought. Like I said it really depends on who is speaking the language and what other people think.

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