That winter, my grandmother died, and my father's messenger was handed over, and I traveled from Beijing to Xuzhou, intending to follow my father home from his mourning. It's been more than two years since I saw my father, and the last thing I can forget is his back. When I met my father in Xuzhou, saw the messy things in the courtyard, and thought of my grandmother, I couldn't help but shed tears. I went from Beijing to Xuzhou and planned to follow my father's funeral home. It was a day when disaster never came singly. That winter, my grandmother passed away, and my father's errand was also handed over. I haven't seen my father for over two years, and the last thing I can't forget is his back. When I went to Xuzhou and met my father, he saw at least one messy house, and thought of my grandmother, I could not help but shed tears in Susu. I went from Beijing to Xuzhou, intending to follow my father home for the funeral. It was a day when misfortunes never come singly. That winter, my grandmother died, and my father's errand was relinquished.
It has been more than two years since I saw my father, and the last thing I can forget is his back. When I saw my father in Xuzhou, I saw the wreckage in the courtyard and thought of my grandmother, so I couldn't help but shed tears. In the winter of that year, my grandmother died and my father's job was handed over. I have not seen my father for more than two years, but what I cannot forget is his back. Dào Xúzhōu jiàn zhao fùqīn, kànjiàn mǎn yuàn lángjí de dōngxī, yòu xiǎngqǐ zǔmǔ, bùjīn sùsùde liúxià yǎnlèi. Nà nián dōngtiān, zǔmǔ sǐle, fùqīn de chāishǐ yě jiāoxiè le, zhèng shì huòbùdānxíng de rìzi, wǒ cóng Běijīng dào Xúzhōu, dǎsuàn gēnzhe fùqīn bēnsàng huí jiā. Wǒ yǔ fùqīn bù xiāng jiàn yǐ yǒu èr nián yú le, wǒ zuì bùnéng wàngjì de shì tā de bèiyǐng. Then I thought I'd give it a try on a longer passage, so I entered the opening sentences of Zhu Ziqing's famous 1925 essay, "Bèiyǐng 背影" (conventionally rendered as "Retreating Figure", more literally, " a view of somebody's back a figure viewed from behind silhouette from the back" ): I had the machine read 衷心感謝 in French, Spanish, Italian, German, and other languages, and they all had their own special "flavor". She was always triumphant when the native speakers could understand most of what the English speakers were reading.
Amazingly, it's still understandable, which replicates the experiments my wife used to make by going up to strangers on American streets and asking them to read pinyin Mandarin to native speakers. When set erroneously to English, it sounds like an American reading out romanized Mandarin, with the "correct" suprasegmental intonation and all, but, of course, paying absolutely no attention to lexical tones. When set to Chinese, the machine pronounces 衷心感謝 properly and precisely: zhōngxīn gǎnxiè. What I heard was Mandarin with an English accent! So I clicked on the speaker button, but, by mistake, I had it set to English rather than to Chinese. I entered the following Mandarin expression into Google Translate and wanted to hear it pronounced by the machine: 衷心感謝 ("heartfelt thanks"). Something very funny happened to me earlier today, funny enough that I would like to share it with all Language Log readers who may be desirous of something more than a cup of coffee to perk them up on a gray, midweek morning.
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