The Language of Kissing

Chinese 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!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.