Absolutely, I would like to know, too.
There have been other films with untranslated scenes that I have inquired about. The respondents haven't needed to be experts, just needed to have gotten some idea of what was said from someone else, or have learned enough to have gotten the jist of it.
(For the record, the only Chinese I can recall is "Thank you", or "dole chair", because my wife asked about it in a Chinese restaurant years ago. Naturally, that's the only phrase the Chinese doctor translated for Chandler in that scene.
I suppose I can take a look around the subtitle sites for something someone might have made for that scene. But until then, does anyone have any idea what the gentleman on the table was saying?
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Norm_uk
10 years ago
They are speaking Cantonese and from the sounds of it your wife was in a Cantonese restaurant when she was told what Chinese for thank you is.
Standard Chinese/Mandarin (Cantonese is a regional language not the national language but is related) is different and understood by any Chinese person who has been educated to high school level almost anywhere in China regardless of regional/ethnic languages.
Thank you in Chinese is Xie Xie (sounds a bit like 'she she'). The way to say thank you in Chinese that your wife was told is simply a more polite/older way and also in Cantonese most likely. As Chinese languages are tonal (which means you need to say the right tone not just the right word or it could be another meaning entirely) it's hard to explain in writing alone.
I've been to China a number of times and picked up the basics...it's not easy but is a very logical and simple language that hides a very deep linguistic and literary history that matches Latin or Greek easily in my view. Pity about the Government and the communist destruction of their culture.
N.
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