Chinese Names

Normally people are surprised when I tell them I teach students named Bill, Henry, John, Katy, and Wendy. I think people expect me to say weird, scary, hard to pronounce names for my Asian students. Then I like to tell people that I even teach a girl named Gwendeline (oh yeah, that's my favorite!).

In reality, they all DO have scary, confusing, hard to pronounce Chinese names. It's just that our students tend to pick English names once they enter American type schools with a bunch of foreigner teachers who can't pronounce any Chinese words. Generally they try to pick names that sound a little like their real names, but it doesn't always happen. Also, there is the occasional student who doesn't chose an English name: generally they are from Japan or Korea. I teach an Ayano, Ji Hoon, Song (Korean name), Chih Hao, and a Masami. All super fun to say compared to the other more American sounding names.

Recently, I decided I wanted to try to learn some of my students Chinese names however. I figure that I am living in Taiwan so I should at least call them by their real names! I started small by trying to learn my advisee's names. There are only five of them so I figured, how hard could it be? HARD! Chinese is so hard to pronounce I constantly rediscover!

I started with my advisee Vivi. Her Chinese name is Pan Wei Ting. You say the first word flat, like never changing the inflection in your voice, and both second sounds said with the second rising tone, like you're saying both words surprised. It's the tones in Chinese that make it so hard to learn!

Then I learned Henry's name: Chueh Yi (pronounced like a hard "e"). His name you say with the fourth, down, tone. You sort of have to act like you're angry to say the fourth tone- or at least I have to.

What's funny is that a;; of their names have meanings in Chinese, but not deep meanings like how you would imagine. Vivi's name literally means "hello, stop" and Henry's name is the exact same as "one" in counting in Chinese. His last name also means "finch" so I call him the Number One Finch now :)

I haven't learned all of my advisees' names yet, but I'm getting there. I like it because it's a fun thing to do at lunch and the kids really enjoy it- they can teach their teachers somethings too! They keep warning me that Rere's name is the hardest though, so I might have to work really hard on that one. I'm learning that one at lunch tomorrow so wish me luck!