![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kakeToday is the anniversary of my very first post in the Chinese menu project!
Over the past year, I've noticed a welcome trend among London's regional Chinese restaurants: more and more of them are providing translations of at least part of their Chinese-only menus. When I first visited Sanxia Renjia in June last year, the interesting menu was entirely in Chinese; on my latest visit a month ago, it was entirely bilingual (and illustrated too). Similarly, Royal Palace now has an illustrated English translation of part of their Chinese menu[see footnote 0], and it's a decent enough selection that on my latest visit we ordered almost exclusively from this.
However, even if this trend continues and spreads, I still think it's worth being able to read the Chinese names of dishes. For one thing, the translated/bilingual menu is often only a selection of the full menu; similarly, specials boards are usually Chinese-only. Also, the Chinese name of a dish often gives you more information than the English name. "Noodles with pork", for example: is that 炸醬麵/zhà jiàng miàn, 擔擔麵/dān dān miàn, or even 螞蟻上樹/mǎ yǐ shàng shù? (As an aside, bob mentioned to me the other week that he has a similar advantage when reading bilingual English/Spanish menus.)
On a more personal note, I am very pleased (and slightly surprised) that I've managed to keep this project going for so long. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who's encouraged me, whether by commenting here or in email, by sending me useful links, by telling me in person that you enjoy reading the posts, or by coming out for yet another Chinese meal with me and being patient while I photograph the menu and interrogate the waitstaff.
I do have a couple of requests today. First of all, is there any way I can make my posts more accessible to you? I try to strike a balance between overexplaining and underexplaining, and between avoiding too much repetition and assuming all readers have read all posts. I also try to use informative alt texts for images (would people prefer to see that in the main text as well/instead?), and to provide transcripts or at least precis of videos that are in English (I don't speak Chinese, yet, so can't transcribe those). In short, I want to do my best not to exclude anyone from being able to read my posts — so if you have any suggestions, I am listening.
Relatedly, is there anything you particularly like or dislike about the way I structure these posts? Do you like (and indeed had you noticed) the model of concept on Monday, character on Wednesday, dish on Friday, vague theme running throughout the three? Do I post too often for you to keep up? And so on[see footnote 1].
Finally, if there's anything you'd like to ask me, anything at all, this is a good time! You can leave a comment, or email me if you prefer (kake@earth.li). Or if you'd just like to say hello, there is a handy tickybox below (should work for both Dreamwidth users and OpenID users).
I just want to say...
Footnote 0: There is actually a faint possibility that my frequent visits and requests for the Chinese menu despite not being Chinese had something to do with this, though I haven't asked.
Footnote 1: Before I saw how popular last Friday's post was, I was also going to ask if people would prefer the Friday posts to have more of a focus on restaurants and less on home cooking...
no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 11:20 am (UTC)I had noticed the weekly theme, but not the Mon/Wed/Fri model. Now that I'm conscious of it, I'm curious to see if it will affect the way I read the posts!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 06:03 pm (UTC)I guess the Mon/Wed/Fri model might be more apparent once we have proper post scheduling — the posts do tend to happen at random times of day sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 09:17 pm (UTC)How come you can read Chinese but not write it?
-Max
no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 09:49 pm (UTC)I can't read Chinese as such, because I haven't learned any grammar beyond the basics. I can read a few hundred characters, but my vocabulary is focused around the characters that appear on menus.
I can write probably around half of the characters I can read, and I'm learning to write the rest of them bit by bit. I can pronounce all the ones I can read — not necessarily perfectly, but at least in some cases well enough to be understood (e.g. in supermarkets and restaurants).
no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 09:54 pm (UTC)There's not too much about Mandarin grammar, I'm sure you'll pick it up soon enough. The big hurdles in the beginning are the characters and the tones, and you seem to have gotten over that. 加油！
no subject
Date: 2011-04-25 10:25 pm (UTC)I started to learn to read Chinese characters specifically because I wanted to understand menus, so being able to speak wasn't quite as important. To start with, I just focused on building my vocabulary and learning about the different Chinese cuisines.
In the long run, I would like to learn Mandarin properly, if only so I can read Chinese cookery books and understand Chinese cookery programmes (I am addicted to watching 天天飲食 on YouTube, even though the only words I understand are the names of ingredients).
I mainly started to learn to write because I thought it might make it easier to remember characters. I wrote more about this here. It does help, but also I enjoy it!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 10:43 pm (UTC)Chinese menu
Date: 2011-04-30 11:43 am (UTC)Many Chinese menu's names go by a particular name not by the ingredients or how it is cooked.
炸醬麵/zhà jiàng miàn, 擔擔麵/dān dān miàn, or even 螞蟻上樹/mǎ yǐ shàng shù
These three are all very specific recipes, if you are familiar with them you will know where each recipe comes from and what are their differences.
You may be interested with this
http://china-corner.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3020
There are also some useful pdf file and links to menu translations.
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/8090-menu-translation-project/
You can learn how to pronounce Chinese characters using this. Cut and paste any characters you want to read, then highlight one character at a time and click on the speaker in the box next to it.
http://www.ourchinese.org/ChineseReading.asp
Re: Chinese menu
Date: 2011-04-30 02:57 pm (UTC)Thank you! I'll drop you an email next time I get confused over something. Actually, one thing that's puzzling me at the moment is how to tell whether 椒 on a menu refers to chillies or peppers. I wrote more about this here.
Yes, exactly — they're all very different, yet I've seen all three of them listed in English as something along the lines of "noodles with pork". Only someone who could read the Chinese would be able to work out what's actually on offer! I've previously posted some thoughts on "flowery" Chinese menu names.
Thanks also for the links! Another good pronunciation website is forvo.com.
Re: Chinese menu
Date: 2011-04-30 04:16 pm (UTC)http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=%E8%BE%A3%E6%A4%92%E8%9E%83%E8%9F%B9
'one thing that's puzzling me at the moment is how to tell whether 椒 on a menu refers to chillies or peppers.'
Not that easy unless you are familiar with the name of dish or what other word it is pairing with.
辣椒 is simply spicy chilli
彩椒 a combination colourful sweet bell pepper/red and green chillies
尖椒 or 杭椒 are finger shaped green chillies
剁椒 chopped chillies (pickled/fermented with salt or not pickled)
泡椒 is watery pickled chillies
黑椒 is black pepper
胡椒 is either white or black pepper
雙椒 could means two of any of these red chilli/green chilli/any bell pepper/ground pepper/Sichuan pepper
豉椒 is normally fermented black bean with chilli and/sweet bell pepper
椒盐 is salt and pepper (pepper here can be normal ground pepper and/or Sichuan pepper)
虎皮煎椒 is chargrilled large mild hot green chilli. 虎皮 tiger skin here refers to the char marking not the type of green chilli.
青椒 can be green bell pepper or just any green chilli spicy or not.
干椒 dried chilli
Above are just some of the common terms, there are many more variations.
Re: Chinese menu
Date: 2011-04-30 05:43 pm (UTC)