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Mandarin or Shanghaiese? doctor should be isan. there is no y consonant, it's a pure vowel. Also, it's not -ng (vocalized by the throat) nor should the san be pronounced like in pinyin for three (san). it's SA + N = SAN, with N nasalized (like the N in "France" when pronounced in French not English). Shanghainese doesn't have the Mandarin pinyin -an sound, so there is no problem using san to indicate Sa+N sound (like isan for doctor). Mandarin words like San (three) and Shan (mountain) are just /sE/ (sei) in Shanghainese. Hence idiot should be gandu. The Shanghainese word for insane/silly is literally "thirteen-dots." In Mandarin it will be shisandian (in pinyin). In Shanghainese it would be zasseidi. the z is the English z and the za is a short vowel (indicated by double consonant s). since there is no pinyin -an sound in Shanghainese, san (three) --> sei, and dian (dot) --> di. Another example: xiansheng (mister) --> shisan. Don't spell Shanghainese words with -ng ending! there is only -in, -on, -an (example: nin, non, nan). ok that's it. hope this entire rant was somewhat interesting. |