【The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon Speaks Mandarin 】Chinese Reacts

[@PiiskaJesusFreak]

There is an episode where Sheldon practices Finnish. His Finnish pronunciation is really impressive, especially for someone who is supposed to be learning it just by reading. Usually in American series and movies if someone is supposed to be speaking Finnish, they don't even try and just spread gibberish instead. Nice to hear that the Mandarin part was similarly well done. Gotta admire the dedication of the actor!

[@Ludifant]

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece Same thing with Gunther from friends speaking "Dutch". We would not have understood them. It´s sad to think american TV-producers just assume everybody is bad at languages. I know it´s "the american public", but I really think they underestimate their viewers. Glad the big bang producers didn´t make the same mistake. Or maybe it´s just Jim Parson´s "crazy" perfectionism.

[@fgpsychology]

Yes Is very good!

[@AlexKS1992]

Well perkele I didn’t know Sheldon could speak Finnish.

[@HkFinn83]

@@Ludifant I think more you’re overestimating how much anybody cares about the Chinese or Dutch pronunciation in a brainless sitcom. Jeez you guys take everything so seriously

[@D_YellowMadness]

@@HkFinn83 It's not about taking it too seriously. It's that the jokes tend to fall flat when the language is wrong & you know the language well enough to tell. Try watching nearly any part in a Japanese cartoon where an "American" speaks "English". It's one of the cringiest things in the world. Keep in mind in most cases, they coud easily just hire someone who actually speaks the language natively so there's usually no excuse.

[@elleromance7760]

I'm so happy to know that Jim Parsons nailed the Mandarin 🥰

[@robthomas7392]

He nails every part he takes on. He was brilliant in "Hollywood".

[@ireallyreallyhategoogle]

Ya, apparently Jim Parsons practice more than the actor playing the man who's supposed to be fluent.

[@Cujo5]

The irony that he gets the pronunciations "wrong" in the script but actually nails the incorrect tones. A normal person would try to say the words and get the tones wrong and then come up with the translated words in the script because all the tones would be wrong and hard to understand.

[@KevinHuangPhasorQuantaG]

2:04 That’s James Hong, an ABC who probably spoke Cantonese growing up, which is why his Mandarin isn’t great. He’s also a Hollywood legend, but I agree with you that it’s annoying when characters that are supposed to have good Chinese speak it poorly in films and shows!

[@Serenity113]

What do you mean by he is an “ABC”?

[@KevinHuangPhasorQuantaG]

@@Serenity113 American Born Chinese

[@Serenity113]

@@KevinHuangPhasorQuantaG ohhh ok I got it. Thanks!

[@mdasifrezwanshishir742]

wow! that's a great fun fact right here :D

[@ReiKoko]

Yeah, he speaks cantonese. His father was an immigrant from Hong Kong.

[@johnjones_1501]

The good thing for Sheldon, is that it is less important that he speak Chinese correctly, than that his character assumes he is speaking Chinese correctly. You could see him arguing with Chinese people that they are the ones speaking their own language wrong.

[@Abshir1it1is]

And so, it’s ten times funnier to learn the meta knowledge that he was right all along! 🤣

[@TheRaiden316]

Aww, you skipped my favorite part. Sheldon also tried to speak Mandarin to Chinese students in the University cafeteria. Instead of saying "this is delicious" he said "your monkey lives inside me".

[@irimac1806]

XDDDD

[@coinsteelelite]

oh yeah that one got me when i watched it 😂😂😂

[@中泰竹木制品]

好滋味(猴子胃)在我里头

[@VladWing]

It makes sense that Sheldon has perfect pronunciation - he has perfect pitch.

[@OscarSommerbo]

Yet he mangles the Swedish he tries.

[@robthomas7392]

Oh what I would give to have perfect pitch. I can replicate just about any melody I hear, either by voice or on any of the instruments I'm proficient in, once I identify the starting note. I can't just pick that starting note out of nowhere and say "that's an E-flat". Annoys the heck outta me.

[@Ludifant]

@@robthomas7392 It can be learned from relative pitch, which you described having. You just take the opening of your favourite song and start singing it. I bet you will hit the right note, because you sang it so many times you recognise the stress on your vocal chords. So then you take that tone as a reference and work out which note is being played by getting the interval (just go up or down half a note and count). It takes practice but then you got it. And there you are. Next time you can be the annoying one :) Perfect pitch is thought of as a rare talent. It´s not even that rare, about 1 in 25 have it naturally, but you got to study music to find out, so 1 in 25 music students..

[@user0-d2r]

As someone who has perfect pitch, that is not how it works

[@jakelefkowitz4570]

@@robthomas7392 this is more like relative pitch, which is what I have after being a musician since the age of 3. However, since I started playing guitar at 5, I can also usually tell the open string notes (from tuning the guitar for all those years) when I hear those notes. The rest I can figure out because of certain songs I've heard a million times. (such as Pink Floyd's comfortably numb being in b minor, I can always hear that note etc..). I wouldn't call this perfect pitch though, just a good sense of relative pitch as I can't tell if a note is perfectly on the right frequency or not based on that single note (such as A440)

[@irenebubunny]

James Hong (the actor who played the Chinese restaurant owner) is a Cantonese speaker 😃

[@wizardman1976]

And his character is from Sacramento :)

[@marco_evertus]

Ahh yes the big bang theory, the one show that unites cultures, you either hate or you love it there is no in-between.

[@ogungou9]

王磊-Raunak: I was indifferent to it. Bored to death. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. But I liked The IT Crowd a lot.

[@valebliz]

@@ogungou9 the IT crowd is way cleverer

[@LetsBuildThatApp]

Sheldon's does a good job here, seems like he practiced a bit before shooting this episode. Anyhow, just wanted to point out the noun form of "Pronounce" is spelled "Pronunciation", and hence does not have the OUNCE sound but instead it has an UNCE sound. This is a common mistake but hopefully it helps for future videos.

[@ChinesewithJessie]

Thank you so much! I'm sure I won't make the same mistake next time. 😊

[@KyliaSkydancer]

Actually, that kind of depends on where you are The UNCE sound is more british but OUNCE ifs more common in Canada and the States, as far as I've heard.

[@Nat-eb4lw]

@@KyliaSkydancer I won't say anything about the Canadian pronunciation, but I've never heard an American pronounce it with an ounce sound. It's also hard to imagine, since there's no ounce in the word. Off the top of my head I can't think of any word with 'un' that would be pronounced as 'oun', I may be forgetting, but I don't think such word exists. Is it possible that you confused the pronunciation of 'pronounce' with the one of 'pronunciation' that's actually the reason so many people get confused and make said mistake. Or maybe if you're Canadian and that's how you speak you just naturally assumed Americans speak like that too?

[@NaraKwonPoD]

@@KyliaSkydancer i've never, not once, in my entire life heard PRONOUNCE-iation. if you've heard it, that is the anomaly. it is NOT more common. at all. but sure, there are ppl who mispronounce things all over the place, right? so it could happen.

[@Octodactylpus]

This is great, we're all learning new things together! Also as an aside, sometimes native English speakers mis-pronounce "proNUNciation" as "proNOUNcation" on purpose as a joke, because we recognise how strange a change in sound it is :P

[@emarcostar]

Actually chinese tv shows do the same. They put western actors and say that they are from x country when they aren't. I've seen "spaniards" who speak really bad Spanish in Korean and Chinese shows 😅

[@TheresaTV1]

And “Americans” who are actually Norwegian 🤣

[@thegardner80]

Sure, if the director and staff don't speak the target language, how are they going to evaluate the actor's pronunciation? And if the audience the show's directed at don't, why would anyone care? Actually a funny joke for us nerds would've been to have Sheldon say everything correctly in the restaurant, but the owner only speak Cantonese...

[@jamegumb7298]

@@TheresaTV1 Every Dutch speaking person is actually speaking German.

[@Boredman567]

In the Tekken video games (which were made by a Japanese studio) most of the English-speaking characters have Americans accents. Even if they're supposed to be from Ireland, Australia, Brazil, Monaco, etc.

[@zeddoes]

Can confirm, my friends do some part time jobs there in china

[@Dragontrumpetare]

I actually dont think it was a misstake that Sheldon did such a good job with the pronounciation of the Mandarin Chinese. It would be kinda bad if the shows, so called, perfectionist Sheldon did a bad job at this. So I am certain he actually got some real coaches. And this channel was kinda fun. You got a sub from me. :-)

[@D_YellowMadness]

Plus he needed to be able pronounce the words decently so he could correctly say the wrong things so the jokes would work.

[@potocatepetl]

nah, his German pronounciation was substandard. I think Jim either had a very good teacher or has a talent for Mandarin.

[@sskyles]

柳丁 is very commonly used in Taiwan. So perhaps the language consultant the writers used was from Taiwan.

[@tokyojimu]

The fact that they used the word 腳踏車 instead of 自行車 for bicycle would lead me to believe this is the case.

[@negljbreakergaming]

Fun thing is after watching this episode a couple of times I picked up "ai ya!" in my vocabulary, even though I've made no attempts to learn Mandarin, it's now what I say when I'm frustrated.

[@alexflores7652]

The actor in this scene was actually born here in the US his name is James Hong. So his Mandarin could have been heavily influenced by his English upbringing. But he is a very famous actor here he normally does a lot of character acting. He's been in a lot of films and TV shows. He's either done voice acting or actually in from of the camera.

[@navidpey194]

Re Orange chicken: In the 1800s, Chinese immigrants from the Guandong district immigrated to America seeking better opportunities. At the time, their district was ravaged from a rebellion and an unstable economy. Their cuisinehad some sweet elemenets, but overall was made of vegetables and meat stir-fryed and served with rice. The original “Orange Chicken” had no breading around each piece of chicken and the sauce was made of leftover orange or lemon peels cooked with soy sauce, chilis and garlic. The sauce had a citrus element, but it wasn’t as pronounced or sweet like you would think of today.

[@Lucretia9000]

That sounds much nicer than what you would get today.

[@robertcorbell1006]

Yes. Most multi-generational Chinese-Americans have ancestry from Guangdong, Cantonese in particular. The thing that annoys me about this scene (or reveals the character for the pseudo-intellectual he is) is that he wants to learn Mandarin to argue with the workers instead of Cantonese. Anyone who grew up in an area with a Chinatown or a large number of Chinese restaurants will quickly learn that there's a huge difference in those dialects.

[@Umbrellaoflove]

Your personality is adorable and you should have a tutorial on speaking Mandarin. I would definitely take it❣️🇨🇦

[@jdstep97]

I would watch, too, and my practice language is Spanish, and I'm learning German as my third language. I'd still watch her teaching Spanish.

[@ejAtienzaAbLM]

Hi! How about Amy’s “Soft Kitty” song in Mandarin? Season 10, episode 20? Haha.

[@lawrenceyang9959]

Very horrifying.

[@mumu87]

It was quite bad hahaha

[@tokyojimu]

I had never watched Big Bang Theory before I moved to China to study. But all my Chinese friends kept telling me how much they loved it, so I started watching it, complete with Chinese subtitles, which helped my Chinese improve.

[@Ludifant]

I love how seriously you took this. My only interest in Mandarin is, when I was 12 years old I got a course called "ni hao" from my uncle because I wanted to learn Japanese. It´s very hard to stay polite when something like that happens and say thank you, but I actually tried to learn a bit, not to let him down and when I got to pinyin transcription and all the different sounds (inflictions) you can make for the same vowel I realized how difficult it was going to be and just gave up. Took me years to get an actual japanese phrasebook (this was before the internet). But I like that because of this misunderstanding I kind of get how these jokes were constructed (wrong infliction is a real danger) and it makes my day that there could have been a real misunderstanding. That is some good research on the part of the writer-team. I always liked the series and feel justified in doing so.

[@lissicalathairyble5738]

Maybe you wanted to write "chinese"?

[@M_SC]

@@lissicalathairyble5738no, you’ve misunderstood

[@stevelucky7579]

“AI YA” is something Uncle from Jackie Chan adventures I’ve heard a lot.

[@ayemunaymessiah598]

Big Bang is definitely one of my favourite shows to date. Still rewatch episodes from time to time

[@douglassmchenry9165]

"Ai ya, xia si wo le", if you are a mandarin speaker, you know he perfectly nailed it.

[@gcharli3p]

thanks for taking the time to make this 谢谢

[@McPhunk]

Jim Parson practices his lines like no other. Im not surprised he did well here

[@Lupita311]

Actor James Hong the Chinese restaurant manager is a very famous actor. He speals English/ Cantonese and he says himself that he can't speak mandarin, he can't learn it, but since he is Chinese in Hollywood they ask him to do the role of a Chinese person without asking what language he actually knows.

[@animangafan342]

In James Hong's defense, he was born here in the US. On top of that, his parents were immigrants from Hong Kong so they probably didnt speak Mandarin & only spoke Cantonese.

[@gregoryschmidt1233]

Would have been more realistic if Sheldon had been studying German, which is much more common for doctoral students in Chemistry and Physics since so many journal articles are written in German.

[@feiery]

Sheldon’s entire issue with the Chinese restaurant is that their tangerine chicken wasn’t made using tangerines. He’s trying to confront them about them using a substitute to tangerines in their “tangerine” chicken.

[@treebles]

i am not surprised that jim parsons took the time to learn the correct pronunciation. he is an awesome + very dedicated actor! thanks for this video. also, you are so pretty.

[@andrewhuston1896]

In California it is more likely the restaurant owner would speak Cantonese than Mandarin. James Hong’s (the actor in this scene) familiy is from Taishan, so they would have spoken Cantonese.

[@hbowman108]

The USA is full of Chinese people from southern backgrounds, and that is why they may have a difficult time with Putonghua. This is a very old tradition: something like a third of the people who came to California before the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) were from Taishan County of Guangdong. The Taishan language persisted so long in California that some early Chinese actors in Hollywood actually spoke it. Victor Sen Yung from Charlie Chan and Bonanza is an example.

[@pandabear153]

Yes you're correct! The only Chinese that I know is Hoisan dialect(Toisan) Even Cantonese is difficult for me to understand. Well it's been a long time since I've even spoke the language!

[@hbowman108]

@@pandabear153 I know someone in a similar situation: he sort of knows his parents' dialect, but speaks Indonesian and English well.

[@pandabear153]

@@hbowman108 I only speak English with a touch of Norwegian Minnesota accent!

[@leeh9420]

I bet he worked hard to get the tones right knowing how meticulous his character is :)

[@jfrlucas]

Thanks a lot for this. I always wanted to know how good the actors from TBBT were talking other languages. I know the producers were very dedicated to scientific accuracy. I would be disappointed to learn that characters were speaking gibberish. Native speakers could felt mocked as a result. It looks like it is the contrary. Impressive.

[@willvr4]

Yeah even the math that looked like gibberish to most of us on the white boards was actually correct. They had mathematicians as consultants on the show to make sure.

[@raymondhuang128]

柳丁 is actually a very popular and common fruit here in Taiwan.

[@hunhun1164]

I've definitely heard of it being an overseas Chinese

[@87crimson]

Thats quite a coincidence. In Argentine Spanish we typically say Aia when we are get hurt or make a mistake with something.

[@theamericanbrotherofmightg3734]

I live in Puerto Rico and I have see many people here including myself use Aia, mostly when we make a mistake or are bother or tired of something. Thought we often use more Acho in Puerto Rico I don't know were that word came from but that word have about the same uses as Aia, like I realize you can interchange both words and the phrase will have the same meaning. If people don't know about Puerto Rico here spanish is the main language.

[@drewlovelyhell4892]

Doesn't surprise me that Jim spoke Mandarin well. He is insanely good at memorising complex dialogue. It's quite a beautiful language.. especially when spoken by a girl dressed as Chun-Li! 😆

[@sonnystaton]

The Chinese actor in the scene, James Hong, is my friend Harry's Godfather. He was also Lo Pan in the movie "Big trouble in little China" you reacted to. I met him a long time ago, I totally geeked out.

[@chris2favip]

A version of what Sheldon trying to say after the library line was: "I have a lot of friend on the internet, lots and lots of friends" (朋友在（我）网上，很多很多朋友）

[@michen517072]

“柳丁” it’s the way we say for orange in Taiwan and also “腳踏車” for bicycle, “橙子” & “自行車” are usually spoken by people from China.

[@myriampro4973]

It was hilarious when the Ay ya was traduced as Oy Vey, which is a Yiddish expression. I am watching a lot of wuxia and dramas, so maybe I could adopt that expression too, along side with my classical Oy Vey... LOL.

[@cyberherbalist]

I'm intrigued with the "ai ya" phrase. Uncle Roger (who is Malaysian) uses the phrase "Haiya!" when he means that whatever is going on is not good. Sounds like it comes from Mandarin!

[@chongleongchua4059]

Ai ya or Haiya is a very common interjection among Chinese speakers of almost all the Chinese languages & dialects. Nigel Ng a.k.a. Uncle Roger is Malaysian ethnic Chinese of Fujian (Hokkien) descent which also uses this interjection in their conversations.

[@matthewlane4702]

Jessie you have such a pleasant disposition; such fine representative of humans at large that I felt compelled to comment. Thankyou and much love from Australia.

[@nngnnadas]

It's funny that sheldon that's supposed to be just learning the language speak better than in all the "native" speakers in your other videos I've watched.

[@TheSource85]

So.. A+ for Jim's effort!

[@Hrafnskald]

Great video, glad to hear Sheldon's hard work paid off :). If you're looking for other comedies with Mandarin scenes, House and How I Met Your Mother both have some interesting ones.

[@marcusnesha4266]

I watched it twice already ahahaha I think I'll watch it again lol

[@DavisSystems]

You just earned yourself a new sub! I love the way you present the latinized text when speaking so I can try to do it myself.

[@mansquatch2260]

The chinese guy working at the restaurant is James Hong, who was born in Minneapolis Minnesota. But his parents were from china. He probably spoke it with a Minnesota accent, donthcya know.

[@victorsixtythree]

James Hong is a legend. He has over 500 acting credits in television and movies. Here is a nice story about him from a couple years ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGbVq6qblslpors And I think the fact that he speaks Mandarin with a Cantonese accent makes complete sense. I often hear that in Chinese restaurants in the States - often the owner is from Hong Kong and grew up speaking Cantonese but also can speak Mandarin.

[@YahooMail286]

哈哈哈哈看的我都想再看一遍生活大爆炸了

[@brentfugett2700]

I really enjoyed this video. I always loved this episode and the notion that the actor who was supposed to be native Chinese couldn't speak Mandarin is HILARIOUS.

[@blenderpanzi]

That reminded me of the Hungarian phrase book sketch from Monty Python.

[@MLBlue30]

My hovercraft is full of eels!

[@malenaboy]

I first heard “Ai ya” when spoken by grandpa in the Jackie Chan animated series.

[@SunshineArt]

Basically the "joke" of the show - The menu says "Tangerine" chicken - but Sheldon thinks they are being cheap and using Oranges instead. He wants to see the Citrus Peels to prove that they are using Oranges instead of Tangerines. So he learns Chinese to confront the restaurant owner. But he gets flustered and fails to pronounce his Chinese correctly.

[@LGS15]

I think it makes sense for Sheldon to at least say (most) things properly as it's a big part of his character to be able to do such things with "ease"

[@TheGreyAngelic]

I jsut want to say, i just found your videos and really, thank you so much, its amazing. I've always watched a lot of Chinese dubbed movies be it martial arts movies or sit coms. but your videos are so enlightening in understand how interesting your language really is, thank you so much for this, this makes me wanna learn to speak your tongue and I am so grateful for this.

[@TK199999]

The Chinese actor is James Hong who's Cantonese, but grew up in Chicago and so when he speaks Cantonese with Chicago accent its hilarious. He speaks clearly as he is a native speaker of Cantonese, its just he lived in the US so long his American accent will come out some times. I do believe he also speaks Mandarin, though again its not his native tongue.

[@StaticBlaster]

awesome reaction and feedback on this episode of the tbbt

[@alibabapirce9782]

actually the restaurant owner (the asian guy) isnt native speaker. he is from Sacramento (he tells that in one of the episodes) so fact that he doesnt speak properly isnt that surprising since his native language would be english and he might have learned mandarin to speak to some family members for example

[@gabrielangel1923]

the American way of saying "ai ya" is "hey". so, "hey. you scared me" or "hey, stop" but its also used as a greeting "hey, nice to see you" or just "hey" with a head nod. its inflection gives it its meaning. so saying it will make you sound much more like a native speaker. btw, I believe its an American thing, not English in general.

[@viviantian9906]

这是我在《生活大爆炸》里最喜欢的一集诶！同样的喜好🥰

[@navidpey194]

Orange chicken is called Chinese food in North America, but orange chicken is rarely found in Chinese restaurants in China. Andrew Cherng, owner and founder of Panda Express, said that orange chicken is just a variation of General Tso's chicken, another dish that is almost unknown in China. Journalist Jennifer 8. Lee says that both "General Tso's chicken and Orange Chicken are Americanized mutations of sweet and sour dishes found in China."[1] Orange chicken has also entered the menus of the mainstream U.S. by being served in school cafeterias,[4] and in military bases' chow halls,[5] and also found in the supermarket frozen meal aisle.[6][7]

[@rogerlibby14613]

General Tso's Chicken --- When I order it I pick a syllable spelled the same in Cherokee. I just say "JOE" but could also add a "ch" sound at the start from another dialect. They always bring the chicken I ordered.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

Yeah, Hollywood often uses Japanese people to portray Chinese people, meanwhile the HK emigres all speak Cantonese and some of the Taiwanese speak Hokkien so... don't expect hollywood to do this properly.

[@doctor_sabato]

The actor playing the waiter is actually a longtime veteran of movies, James Hong, who is ethnically Chinese but American by birth- he’s originally from Minneapolis. I would not be surprised if his Chinese is not very good. 😕

[@jackt7230]

Hollywood has a lot to answer for, and not just old Hollywood, but the representation of Asian actors seems limited. Directors can be incredibly picky of who would get a role basing on not just ethnicity, but their personal look and acting ability. Even people that look perfect for the role, can speak the language natively, may get rejected because they act like a block of wood. Some, who have zero connections to the culture, but are incredible actors, can step in and make you believe. They may make an error in dialect, but over all do a fantastic job.

[@KevinHuangPhasorQuantaG]

@@doctor_sabato I believe he speaks better Cantonese than Mandarin.

[@ReiKoko]

@@doctor_sabato James Hong speaks cantonese. His dad immigrated from Hong Kong, where canto is more widely spoken. Western media has a habit of pretending that mandarin is the only Chinese language that exists.

[@mackgutierrez1942]

@@ReiKoko not just the western media, the CCP has made it their mission to force assimilate everyone into a Han, Mandarin speaking ethnicity.

[@AlexManMe]

Orange chicken is American completely, we have Chinese takeaways in the UK but they do not sell orange chicken

[@arizona5234]

Would you be able to review the show Broad City, there's an episode where one of the main character's mom (portrayed by Susei Essman) speaks Chinese (the episode is S02E04). Love your videos by the way, you're really helping me avoid using English intonation

[@ChinesewithJessie]

Thank you for the recommendation, I'll look into it!

[@absurdnerd7624]

As a life long nerd (hence my screen name) I remember how I immediately identified with the premise of very first episode of Big Bang Theory. While I am not a theoretical physicist and do not know any scientists in real life, I definitely have participated in many of the nerd activities portrayed in the television series. I had no idea the show was popular in other countries. I expected that it would not translate well for other cultures.

[@SewolHoONCE]

You pull up old shows, have you heard Tom Lehrer’s line, “Auf Deutsch oder English, I can count down, and I’m learning Chinese,” says Werner von Braun! In the 1950’s, Tom Lehrer saw the future.

[@tactrix1h]

I've found that to be a very common issue in movies, people who are suppose to be a native speaker of the language are terrible and have no concept of how it's suppose to be spoken and what it really sounds like.

[@michaelhatchard8864]

My daughter use to love this show, a Chinese-speaking friend, admits to adding swear words to his dialogue, to suit the Australian lifestyle.

[@Kaibo900618]

I’m impressed you are living in China with your fluency in English. The power plug on the wall reveals it😂

[@brezzainvernale]

I love your "ai ya", it is similar to our "ahia" (Italian)

[@Unni_Havas]

I remembered back in the 80ties, the x-files made an episode that took place in my country, Norway. One of the actors was speaking my language on the show so there was english subtitles for it. We had norwegian subtiles on top of the english subtitles, because not only didn't we understand what he was saying, we was halfway through the show before we realized he was trying to speak Norwegian. I guess they just gave him a script in Norwegian, with no information on how to pronounce any of it. But I guess for the majority of american viewers it didn't make a difference, they just heard a foreign language.

[@LeftyConspirator]

Henry Trondheim. A legend. Yeah, that Norwegian was terrifyingly bad, it took me a *long* time to understand that was even the language he was going for, and I'm a native speaker as well.

[@kenneth8477]

Sheldon's social credit +1,000,000😂

[@malfunctioningtoasterdog565]

Sheldon 他的中文是挺好的，让我看的很开心！:D

[@scvcebc]

Jim Parsons is a very professional actor and goes out of his way to accurately portray his character, in this case, a brilliant man with Aspergers who strives for perfection.

[@yazzerino]

YOU ARE GORGEOUS! CHINESE PEOPLE ARE SO BEAUTIFUL

[@prachigupta9579]

Big fan too ❤️

[@saraleetaiwan1572]

您好，柳丁和橙、橘都不同。 柳丁圓圓的表皮很光滑，像大雞蛋那樣大小。肉比橘子多汁也較細緻，但肉之間沒有橘橙那樣多的纖維。所以，市場有賣柳丁汁，卻不見橘子汁。一般商場包裝販售的柳橙汁/橘子汁也只是人工加味的並非原汁。 在台灣，初冬開始有柳丁，之後，橘子才問市。

[@ChinesewithJessie]

原来是这样！谢谢Sara耐心给我解释❤

[@楊子華-x2y]

柳丁就是柳橙，因為早期台灣人把柳橙看錯成柳燈，進而錯成柳丁

[@楊子華-x2y]

另外，柳橙原產地就是中國嶺南地區哦，所以你的解釋有點尷尬

[@kg6ojl]

You might want to check at the show "Family Affair" from the 1960s. Season 1, Episode 23, "The Mother Tongue" Mr. French speak to a little girl, who is a diplomats child in her native tongue, and mistakenly insults her.

[@sammylane21]

I'm gonna say it, she is a very beautiful woman.😍

[@teentitans0]

When he was scared by Penny, but I wasn't sure if he said it right. Thanks for confirming that. 💯🙌🏽

[@yellowantonio-nado7761]

The actor is James Hong. He's more old.style Cantonese speaker

[@raymondkaumoana715]

Why do Chinese people generally find it hard to understand the context of sentences when they are mispronounced? When I was in China I went to momotea to order nai gai lu cha. I kinda mispronounced it so they didn't understand what I wanted. So I had to point at the photo. But I'm thinking like, I'm at a tea shop, what else could I be saying?

[@eriks2962]

I don't think it is a Chinese thing. I have seen it happen with English speakers and French speakers as well. When we learn a new language we spend lots of effort analyzing "what may sound like that" but a native speaker never does.

[@mackgutierrez1942]

@@eriks2962 English and French aren’t tonal lamguages tho, we can understand normally if you pronounce the sounds in whatever tone

[@eriks2962]

@@mackgutierrez1942 sure but a 'eu' that is pronounced 'hey' can completely throw off a french speaker. Or the stress put on the wrong syllable can completely throw off an English speaker.

[@anniecheng7916]

because a mispronounced word is a different word. it's like if I was trying to say "the moon is bright" but instead said something that sounded more like "the noon ice kite." doesn't really make sense unless im pointing at the moon and you're great a figuring out context.

[@micahsnow346]

Chinese is a tonal language. If you get the tones wrong, you are likely saying something completely different or unintelligible. Definitely the hardest part of the language imo

[@CavemanSynthesizer]

I love the caption translating "ai ya" as "oy vey."

[@orangeandblackattack]

These are so great

[@Lucretia9000]

Have you attempted Bladerunner yet? It's a mish mash of languages including the Chinese ones, afaik. There's Japanese in there too which they always laugh at.

[@iceewun5833]

“Ai ya” is part of my everyday language because Jackie Chan Adventures lol

[@eileen_a_b]

Your comment about non native Chinese speakers getting parts where they don't sound like native speakers happens with actors performing Spanish speaking roles also. It is also tough for actors to put on a fake Spanish accent when speaking English. I have only ever heard a convincing accent done once.

[@AerCloud]

You should do the scene where Howard calls the restaurant because Raj didnt get the right food in his order (s01 ep 07)

[@davidsanders5652]

The Chinese actor, James Hong, was a Hong Kong native I think. He speaks guangdonghua so that may be your confusion? I think the center of the joke is two different Chinese languages.

[@spreizfus]

James Hong again! I'm telling you, that guy really gets around.And for many years. I watched him on the TV show Kung Fu about 50 years ago.

[@geugoryrodrigues4012]

I don’t speak Chinese but I really like your videos. Very interesting.

[@620026200]

I think he's trying to say "朋友在我車上，很多很多朋友" at 2:49

[@maigowang]

The 哎呀吓死我了 sounds really native!

[@LyonLyonLiu]

0:28 「給我干你用的陳皮」ＸＤＤ 這句話可以延伸到詭異的面向

[@Heyitsann]

I think the reason why characters who are supposed to be good Chinese speakers don't speak Chinese well, is because so often in Hollywood media they just call for any East Asian to play other Asians since the general American public can't tell the difference. Because of this, the "Chinese" characters are sometimes played by Japanese, or Korean actors

[@buciallstar]

I have the same issue with hollywood casting non-german speakers in roles that require speaking german. it's frustrating, because I lived in California for many years, and there are so many native germans running around to a point it actually annoyed me. I moved half the planet and I still have the same people around me hahaha. And there are definitely a lot of native chinese people in California as well

[@notme6753]

I'm Singaporean non Chinese and even I uses 'Aiya' a lot of times even 'Aiyo'

[@davidnichol4735]

I used to be a blackjack dealer, and the only word I know is "AI YAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" Glad someone finally explained it to me in a way that makes sense lol