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Kirsten Gillibrand's Mandarin

Language Log 2019-04-09

More in 2020 Dem polyglots:

Here is @SenGillibrand , an Asian studies major, greeting @VOANews in Mandarin. pic.twitter.com/kdcr2hsL69

— Esha Kaur Sarai (@egkaur) April 6, 2019

A couple of weeks ago, I was all ready to post on Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg's polyglotism and how to pronounce his name, but other things got in the way.  So I leave it to Language Log readers to comment on those matters if they wish.  Now I must seize the day and write about the current excitement over Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand greeting a VOA reporter in Mandarin.  You can see and hear it for yourself in the tweet copied above.  Short though it be, there's enough for us to get a pretty good idea of the quality of her Mandarin.

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I don't mean to belittle Sen. Gillibrand's Mandarin, because it is really pretty good for a non-native, and parts of it are excellent.  Moreover, she is a fellow Dartmouth alum, so I'm actually quite proud of her for learning Mandarin and speaking it so well.  On the other hand, I'm going to analyze what she says in the VOA tweet rather critically to show what sorts of things we should be paying attention to when we hear a foreigner speaking a second language.

Here's what I hear the Senator say:

nǐ hǎo ma?

hǎo bù hǎo?

wǒ… wǒ de Zhōngwén de míngzi shì Lù Tiānnà

你好吗 好不好 我…我的中文的名字是陸天娜

Hello.

How are you? // All right? / OK?

My… my Chinese name is Lu Tianna.

She sounds like a talking automaton.

I wish to reiterate that the Senator's Mandarin (what we hear of it here) is not bad, in fact pretty good.  The tones are correct, but not natural.

Here are some finer points I would make:

1. Chinese don't greet each other with "你好吗".  See here.

2. The second 的 is unidiomatic.

3. The fourth tone on 是 is overemphasized; ditto for 娜.

As one of the commenters to the Twitter thread said, "One thing I’ve noticed about Mandarin is Americans really hit the tones hard, whereas we Africans speak it in our native accent."

Further comments from native speakers:

I. (M.A. in humanities)

Her Mandarin is pretty good indeed and her pronunciation of every single character is correct, although the tones are not natural enough. Here are my thoughts:

1. Greeting with "你好嗎?" is not very common, especially not in front of more than one person. It sounds like a response from one specific person is expected. In this circumstance, I think "你們好" or "大家好" would be better than greeting in the interrogative. Otherwise, a pause should be made after saying "你好嗎" so that it sounds more like a greeting.

2. I agree that "好不好?" is more like "All right?". Even if people could interpret it as "How are you?" according to the context, it sounds like she is asking for an answer. "好不好" here is completely redundant and unidiomatic.

3. As a result, someone (I can tell he is a native speaker of Mandarin) said "我很好" as a response to her (between 0:02~0:03 in the short video), after which she turned to him. However, this conversation sounds a little bit weird because it is not the common way for Chinese to greet each other.

4. As a result, she stammered a bit when saying ”我…我的中文名字是，陸天娜“ because of the unexpected interruption of his response.

5. The fourth tone on "是" is overemphasized and the following pause before introducing her name is a little bit long. It then sounds like a child proudly making a self-introduction :D

In all, I think her Mandarin is quite good (in fact, I think her accent is even better than some topolect speakers when speaking Mandarin), although some improvements could be made.

II. (M.A. in humanitites)

I think her Chinese is really good. I can understand her words easily. Her pronunciation is accurate. But it is still easy to tell that she is not a native speaker. Because her tone is a little rigid.

As for the contents of her speech, I totally agree with you that "好不好" is not very appropriate here. Generally, I use “好不好” to ask for others agreement. For example, "我们去吃午饭，好不好？" If she changes it into "你好不好？", I think it is better.

III. (professional Mandarin instructor with long experience)

You're absolutely right. The 好不好 there was odd. I think, as a non-native speaker, her tones were pretty good, especially her fourth tone. Her 是, 陆 and 娜 were all quite accurate in terms of pitch.

I would say her problems were mostly in her grammar/usage. The 好不好 there was unnecessary. 好不好 is usually used as a tag question, meaning "is that ok?" Also, The second 的 in 我的中文的名字是陆天娜 was also not needed, though it was not a serious problem.

From this short video, I would guess her Chinese pronunciation is not bad, but her grammar probably is just okay.

IV. (M.A. in humanities)

Yes, 好不好 is not very proper in the context, and she is not really speaking a lot in Chinese. Moreover, not many videos of her speaking Chinese can be found online. But I'm quite satisfied with her pronunciation, as most of non-native speakers can't pronounce in the right way. Very few people can speak Chinese as perfect as you do! So I guess more lenience should be given to most Americans who are interested in studying Chinese!

V. (M.A. in humanities)

Yes I think her Mandarin is pretty good, and I agree with the points you made. One more thing I would stress is the second sentence — 好不好. I don’t get its meaning in this context.

I have heard a lot foreigners who learn Chinese greeting people with “你好吗”. It sounds a little bit weird, but Chinese could get what they mean. I think it is the way what they were taught when they first learned Chinese, just like for many Chinese who merely learn English for school, the only reply they have for “How are you” is “ I’m fine, thank you, and you?”

VI. (M.A. in humanities)

I agree with the three points you made. Generally I think her Chinese is pretty good. Especially the “好不好”. If I only listen to the “好不好” phrase without seeing the video or seeing her, I wouldn’t know it’s a foreigner speaking Chinese. She doesn’t have a very strong foreigner accent which could be very hard to get rid of. Also she says Chinese words pretty clearly. It’s only a few phrases and one sentence, so I don’t know whether she practiced a lot before or she was only sharing a little due to the time limits. Overall I think her Chinese (speaking) is pretty good. She looks very happy and confident about her Chinese too.

We do have one other Twitter video of Senator Gillibrand speaking Mandarin, and it's embedded in this article:

"Kirsten Gillibrand Speaks Mandarin, But All Anyone Can Talk About Is Mayor Pete", Natalie Gontcharova, REFINERY29 (4/8/19):

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand mentioned she studied Mandarin during her speech in Cedar Rapids today, so another reporter and I took advantage to test out our Chinese: pic.twitter.com/zR4Mf8277J

— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) February 19, 2019

In this clip, she begins exactly the way she did in the VOA clip above:

nǐ hǎo ma?

hǎo bù hǎo?

你好吗 好不好

Hello.

How are you? // All right? / OK?

Then the person whom she greeted asks her, "Can you still speak [it, i.e., Mandarin]".  Whereupon her command of the language completely breaks down.  She did not "pass… with flying colors", as the REFINERY29 reporter intimates.

 

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