Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT 10 9 Transformations with ch ng Since learning a language inevitably involves errors of perception or translation such expressions involving transformations will be useful Some are formed with ch ng itself a verb meaning become cf ch ng le y ge sh n became a spirit in the temple dialogue in Unit 9 Added to compatible verbs ch ng introduces a transform the product of a transformation Frequently the thing transformed is marked by b Here are examples T b zhu n i ge z xi ch ng zh o le She has written the character zhua as zhao 19 Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT T b shu i n i ge z k nch ng y ng le He read the characters shuai as yong T b x huan n i ge c shu ch ng x w ng le She pronounced the word xihuan as xiwang Q ng b ng w b zh i j ge j zi f ny ch ng Y ngw n Please help me translate these sentences into English Interestingly standard transliterations of the two hotels f ndi n the Hilton and the Sheraton are very similar in Chinese The first is X rd n the second is Xi l d n at least in one of its renditions It is easy to hear one as the other N shu X rd n w b t t ngch ng Xi l d n le When you said Hilton I heard it as Sheraton Exercise 4 Provide translations for 1 We often translate du buq as sorry but actually it s not quite the same 2 You can t call good bad or bad good 3 His book has been translated into Chinese 4 First year students often read as or as 5 My driver heard Sheraton as Hilton so I ended up staying far from the office 10 10 B i by In English a sentence such as The police arrested them can be recast for various rhetorical reasons as they were arrested by the police or they got arrested by the police The agent can be stated using the preposition by or it can be omitted They were got arrested Sometimes the agent is unknown at other times there are reasons not to state the agent avoiding responsibility for example In many languages the shift from starting with the agent the police to starting with the patient the people arrested and the consequent changes to the verb arrested was got arrested are characterized by the terms active to passive Chinese verbs as we have seen are uncommitted to many of the categories that are taken for granted in English and many European languages tense person she sings they sing and passive too In many cases perhaps most cases where English has a passive Chinese is noncommittal and simply lets the context determine how a particular noun relates to the verb The following pair of Chinese sentences are structurally identical yet in most contexts the first is translated by an English passive the second by an active N n z nme ch nghu How should you be addressed N n z nme y ng How do you use this 20 Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT However there are cases in Chinese which do bear a resemblance to what in European tradition has been referred to as passive voice These involve the word b i or one of several other words whose function is nearly synonymous with b i The pair of sentences below utilizing the verb zhu arrest seize illustrate J ngch b t men zhu q lai le The police arrested them T men b i j ngch zhu q lai le They got arrested by the police In both languages agent and patient person affected are rearranged so as to make the patient the starting point While in the Chinese b i cannot be omitted its object j ngch can be In the English example by the police can be omitted but not just the police It is noteworthy however that the verb in Chinese undergoes no modification it is zhu in both cases cf English arrested but got arrested However under some conditions and perhaps more often in some regions than others the Chinese verb can be modified by the addition of g i give in one of its diverse functions before the verb T men b i j ngch g i zhu q lai le They got arrested by the police The addition of g i may add an additional nuance of commiseration or regret The use of got in English rather than the more neutral have been may serve the same purpose The possibility of adding g i to the verb makes the structural comparison between English and Chinese more compelling But regardless of the structural similarities b i like its active counterpart b has certain conditions attached to it which makes the Chinese construction with b i much less common that English passives In most cases not all b i and its counterparts only appear with actions which have an adverse effect with things breaking being lost or stolen damaged etc 1 T de z x ngch b i b m His bike got sold by my aunt m i le O n t i k x le Oh what a pity T shu q z x ngch t i w ixi n le She said that riding bikes was too dangerous 2 W men z osh ng li di n b i ch ox ng le B i h izimen ma B b i l j ch 3 X ngli d u y jing b i t men n z u le N d o n l le W b q ngchu y x n d o w itou le We got woken up at 6 00 am By the kids No by rubbish trucks The luggage has already been taken away by them Where d they take it to Not sure maybe they took it outside 21 Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT 10 10 1 Other options with g i ji o r ng It is worth noting that there are alternatives to b i some of them more colloquial ji o r ng and g i yet again Unlike b i they all have other functions r ng let ji o call g i give for R ng and ji o require an object even if a dummy r n but g i like b i does not Z x ngch b i r n g i t u le Z x ngch g i r n g i t u le Z x ngch ji o r n g i t u le Z x ngch r ng r n g i t u le My bike got stolen by someone No doubt you have marveled at the versatility of the word g i which occurs as a main verb give as a CV for …