An engrossing introduction to the riches of Chinese that should delight casual language mavens and more experienced speakers...
The world’s most widely spoken language—and one of the most daunting to learn—has its idiosyncrasies dissected in this primer.
Hung (Practical Ophthalmology, 2016, etc.), a retinal surgeon, amateur linguist, and author, is fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese, and his native Cantonese dialect and thus well-qualified to interpret the foibles of Chinese for English speakers. Chief among these is a fiendishly difficult writing system that uses characters symbolizing ideas rather than the simple alphabets other languages use to phonetically spell out the sounds of words. Hung shows how Chinese characters evolved over thousands of years from rudimentary drawings of the sun, trees, rivers, and the like into complicated, abstract tangles of lines only vaguely connected to the concepts they signify. Chinese speakers learn to read and write by memorizing thousands of ornate characters, a task that significantly slows their attainment of literacy compared to the speed at which students learn alphabetic writing. Other maddening quirks of Chinese that he deftly explores are its tonal semantics and its relatively small number of phonemes, which make for a bewildering number of homonyms. The word ma, Hung notes, can mean mother, horse, hemp, or to scold depending on the tone of voice, while whole paragraphs can be written using nothing but the syllable “shi.” The author continues with a beguiling tour of China’s linguistic culture, from the folktales behind cryptic Chinese aphorisms—“Ban’s door, display axe” is an injunction to not show off one’s meager skills—to hilariously wrong-headed Chinese-to-English translations in signage. (He finds restaurant menus touting such delicacies as “binaural infected cucumber” and “grilled sexual harassment.”) Hung’s treatise blends wide-ranging, sophisticated, but very readable linguistic analysis with insightful reflections on his personal experience navigating three radically different languages, all packaged in graceful prose that wears its erudition lightly.
An engrossing introduction to the riches of Chinese that should delight casual language mavens and more experienced speakers alike.Pub Date: April 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-92495-2
Page Count: 238
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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