unforum

[rickster]

Am I the only one not hearing "dui bu qi" at the end? Everytime I listen to it I hear "Wo Bu Qi", pronounced (WahBooChee).

[BoogedyBoo]

I think it's just a difference of expectations. I speak Chinese (mandarin/shanghai dialect) and "du bu qi" is the only thing that made sense when I first heard that portion of the tape. When you get use to a language long enough, you start picking out common phrases. Don't feel too frustrated, if you hear something else. It is a pretty badly spoken line, lack of intonation, and my initial response was that it was butchered japanese

[Pariah]

Something everyone seems to overlooking

[TheDude]

gah, its called china because she had a count down to when she was leaving, but then a malicious force took control of the timer, which is why its called that.

[finalhope]

What do we know of Dana's father?

Possibly Chinese?




What are the Chinese rules for foriegners? It is a communist country, after all...

[AWOL]

no, dana's eyes arn't chinese at all. There is no way that her father is chinese. He was never mentioned, but maybe he lives in China.

[number8]

[aaaaa]

By my ear it sounds like

"I'm lost. I am sorry."

Or

"I've become lost, I am sorry."

Or a less literal but more accurate:

"I've lost my way, I am sorry."

(I speak some Mandarin.)

[Zenneth]

I'm chinese, first language i spoke was mandarin, but that eventually died away into english. I still speak it frequently with my grandparents who are in the states. Dui bu qi, is most likely NOT what she says at the end. it sounds like, hui, not dui. Which is odd and makes no sense, technically that is. Dana's chinese is bad right? The first half to me sounds like, wo mei zhi dao, butchered like none other. But that doesnt fit but i cant make anything more of it, wo mei zhi dao would mean i dont mean, in bad grammer, (it should be wo bu zhi dao). but that wouldn't tell us anything, oh i didnt say what hui bu qi might mean. it might mean i cant come back. can't

[kilmar]

[CorSorei]

I think the whole thing about it being in a numerical sense might have something to do with it. I have called that number multiple times (also at random times of the day) and always get the, "This mailbox is full" message. My ? is has anyone been able to leave a voicemail? She may be telling us she's not getting them. It could be a message to someone she knows saying she is/isn't going or is/isn't coming back.

I mean, really, does it make sense if you are being watched/threatend/hunted to go somewhere you announced in advance? I wouldn't.

I know some of this has been mentioned, this is just my opinion.

[Zenneth]

You have the same spellings I do, which is good. Thanks for the input, so okay, she obviously says sorry now. I meant to say dui bu qi means I don't know, just a typo, sorry. I...don't know what to make of the first half anymore. Dui bu zhi. This is to those who speak mandarin. It's hard for me to say it english, so hear goes, dui, yong di si sheng, bu, di si sheng, zhi, di san sheng. Wouldn't that mean can't straighten out? And wait, when i look at it, lui? lui doesn't exist in mandarin, did you mean hui? Lui is possible in cantonese, but there is no word with lui. Wo mei hui lai, would make sense, it would mean, i didn't come back in the past tense, but looking at dana's mandarin speaking skills, it could mean a variety of things relating to her not returning.

[kilmar]

I think she means to say: 我不回來 (Wo bu wui lai)
which would be correct. However, i believe she screws up on the 回 and pronounces it as "lui" instead of "wui", which would be a common mistake (and you are correct in that it is the cantonese word for "come"). She then uses the word 無 (mei, meaning none) instead of 不 (bu, meaning not).

I surmise that the person who assisted her in the translation is not fluent in Madarin, but in Cantonese (which is the more common language in San Francisco's Chinatown, btw). However, since the official language of China is Mandarin and not Cantonese, Dana had to ask her chinese translator to translate "I am not coming back. I am sorry" to Mandarin and thus causing the current confusion.

You may ask: How did my long and convoluted assumption come to being? It's because I am more fluent in Cantonese than Mandarin (though my Mandarin ain't too shabby), and I can imagine making similar mistakes in my early years learning Mandarin when trying to say the same phrase.

Boy I probably confused the heck out of most of the non-chinese population on this thread.

[number8]

kilmar: when you said mei I thought you meant 没, which is another negative sense word. 我没回來 and 我無回來 have similar meanings, but they put things into the past tense, like "I have not come back." This is different than saying 我不回來, which implies a future reference, as in "I will not come back."

Zenneth: try using this format for tones: dui4 bu4 zhi3. I don't think that's what she meant though, at least in context "I'm sorry" fits into the meaning very well.

I also agree that the pronounciation is "Wo mei lui lai", though all pronounced in the flat tone so it is very hard to guess what she meant.

[Bighamm]

I am so lost on the chinese right now...It's so hard to be a lurker (anything I've had to contribute has already been stated....I could always Trout though) when you don't understand the difference between ???? and ????.