What is "Chinese Yuan"? Or "Chinese use Yuan." Really? Do Americans not use "Yuan"? Everyone uses "yuan" because "yuan" is not a kind of money. It's a counter.
Money in PRC (People's Republic of China) and ROC (Republic of China) actually have names. In PRC, the name is Renmingbi, or "People's Dollars", and in ROC, the name is Xingtaibi, or "New Taiwan Dollars".
Now, back to counters. Counter is a concept unique to East Asian languages. After thinking long and hard about an English equivalent, I only came up with one English word that is a good example. Paper. People say "a piece of paper". So, in this example, I'll ask George, "Hey, can I have some paper?" George will reply, "Sure, how many pieces do you want?" and I reply, "Two pieces." In this conversation, "piece" implies paper, but it is not paper. Therefore, the word piece means paper but it doesn't mean paper at the same time. Yet, you cannot say "two paper", as it is grammatically incorrect, but you can say "two pieces". (The Chinese exactly equivalent would be: "可以給我一些紙嗎?" "幾張?" "兩張." or "Can I have some paper?" "How many zhang?" "Two zhang.")
In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, every noun comes with a counter, and this is largely considered the most difficult thing for foreigners, or even kids, to learn, because the counters have no rhyme or reason and they're all different.
For money, the counter is "yuan", or "kuai". When people in a country, they typically don't say "1 yuan US Dollar" or "1 yuan RMB". Instead they will say "1 yuan". However, assuming I have no idea where the person is and he tells me, "An apple is 2 yuan", then I'll have to ask, "2 yuan of what?" Then, depending on which country he is in, he'd tell me, "2 yuan Mark" or "2 yuan Euro". With the same line of thought, when a person is in the US, "1 yuan" is assumed to be one US Dollar. So, a Chinese person, in America, would refer to RMB as "1 yuan RMB", and NT (New Taiwan Dollar) as "1 yuan NT". You only need to specify the kind of money you are referring to if that is not the default currency of where the conversation is taking place.
To some foreigners, I think the reason they mistakenly think Chinese "use" "yuan", is because when they walk around the street, when they ask, "How much is that shirt?" the vendors will say, "200 yuan," because the vendors assume the foreigners already know the vendors meant "200 RMB" instead of "200 TWD" or "200 USD". In this context, since English doesn't have counters, I can see why foreigners will mistakenly think we "use" yuan, when no one "use" yuan. We count with yuan.
Now, back to counters. Counter is a concept unique to East Asian languages. After thinking long and hard about an English equivalent, I only came up with one English word that is a good example. Paper. People say "a piece of paper". So, in this example, I'll ask George, "Hey, can I have some paper?" George will reply, "Sure, how many pieces do you want?" and I reply, "Two pieces." In this conversation, "piece" implies paper, but it is not paper. Therefore, the word piece means paper but it doesn't mean paper at the same time. Yet, you cannot say "two paper", as it is grammatically incorrect, but you can say "two pieces". (The Chinese exactly equivalent would be: "可以給我一些紙嗎?" "幾張?" "兩張." or "Can I have some paper?" "How many zhang?" "Two zhang.")
In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, every noun comes with a counter, and this is largely considered the most difficult thing for foreigners, or even kids, to learn, because the counters have no rhyme or reason and they're all different.
For money, the counter is "yuan", or "kuai". When people in a country, they typically don't say "1 yuan US Dollar" or "1 yuan RMB". Instead they will say "1 yuan". However, assuming I have no idea where the person is and he tells me, "An apple is 2 yuan", then I'll have to ask, "2 yuan of what?" Then, depending on which country he is in, he'd tell me, "2 yuan Mark" or "2 yuan Euro". With the same line of thought, when a person is in the US, "1 yuan" is assumed to be one US Dollar. So, a Chinese person, in America, would refer to RMB as "1 yuan RMB", and NT (New Taiwan Dollar) as "1 yuan NT". You only need to specify the kind of money you are referring to if that is not the default currency of where the conversation is taking place.
To some foreigners, I think the reason they mistakenly think Chinese "use" "yuan", is because when they walk around the street, when they ask, "How much is that shirt?" the vendors will say, "200 yuan," because the vendors assume the foreigners already know the vendors meant "200 RMB" instead of "200 TWD" or "200 USD". In this context, since English doesn't have counters, I can see why foreigners will mistakenly think we "use" yuan, when no one "use" yuan. We count with yuan.
On an interesting note, when translating Chinese into English, people often use "dollar" as the default word to replace "yuan". As I noted before, NT is translated into New Taiwan Dollar, and RMB's English means People's Dollars. We also regularly translate "one yuan" into "one dollar". Now that I noticed it, it is interesting to me that we did not use another country's currency as the default word for "yuan".
No comments:
Post a Comment