The Language of Kissing
October 18th, 2010 | Categories: Friends, Life, Relationships | 2 CommentsChinese is a tonal language; a simple change in inflection can change the entire meaning of a word. Tones are hard for any non-native Chinese speaker to learn, for obvious reasons. It’s particularly embarrassing when you intend to say something completely harmless and innocent but instead say something suggestive or inappropriate!
Once, my friend and I essentially told each other we should start making out in the middle of class. What we meant to say was “ask,” but we butchered the tone for “ask” so instead of wèn (问) we said wěn (吻). So instead of saying “We should ask,” we said, “we should kiss.”
No wonder our 老师 (lǎoshī / teacher) stared at us in shock when she overheard us. It’s probably not the first time I’ve said something inappropriate due to mangling the tones, either. I swear, these tones will be the death of me!
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Hi, I'm Manda. I'm a college student studying communications and languages. I like to read, shop, bake, and travel. I have a tendency to listen to my favorite songs on repeat for hours on end. Sometimes I catch myself thinking in a language other than English. 
I remember this one time my roommate tried to teach me some Chinese on our way home on the subway and I thought I was doing awesome and she just kind of looked at me like I was a silly puppy who’s doing something stupid, but trying so hard that she didn’t have heart to put me down. I’m pretty sure it was entirely my tones that did me in, haha.
Today in class I learned the phrase “to digest”. It has the same exact pronunciation as “to laugh at” except of course the tones are different… Now I have to be super careful not to say “Don’t digest me!” instead of “Don’t laugh at me!” *sigh*