Just personal observation, maybe it feels different for a professional English song lyric composer.

I don’t have a spreadsheet, but so many characters have the same ending sounds in Mandarin that I could easily find a rhyming word when writing song lyrics.

English is a struggle to find a rhyming word that fits into the context of the contents, and it feels kinda like a forced rhyme.

I haven’t really spoken Mandarin for over 15 years, somehow it’s still easier to do rhyming.

P.S. Cantonese has more variety of sounds and less characters have the same ending sounds, so its harder to rhyme in Cantonese.

  • FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    2·
    2 days ago

    In a language where the inflection changes the word, how does something like sarcasm work? Is it conveyed in a totally different manner? Is there more reliance on other nonverbal cues?

    • 「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」 | (aka: 鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma)@sh.itjust.worksOP
      4·
      2 days ago

      Examples from my mother:

      When I refuse to eat because I’m mad:

      哇，練神仙啊！亦好啊，慳返啲食嘅。(Omg, are you trying to become an immortal being? Great, we can save a lot of money!)

      When I told my mom I wanna to 睇橋 (to view a bridge; euphemism for me wanting to jump off a bridge):

      使唔使開車載你去啊？(Do you want me to drive you there?)

      Always said with a positive happy voice… like when you grow up with someone you understand when it’s sarcasm, the creepy happy voice as if she’s thinking: omg this annoying child, finally I’ll get some sweet relief

      Also she jokes about:

      謂，你咁唔識珍惜生命，不如帶你返中國換個個細路出來啦。🤗 (Hey, since you don’t really wanna live, why dont I take you back to home to China and find someone else to take your place?) (She means find a lookalike and let them steal my identity, and she’ll pretend to have them as their child)

      (Edit: for context, I’m the actual biological child of my parents, so… yea… even blood relationships doesn’t matter anymore for a culture so obsessed with blood relations.)

      So yea, just normal family. Totally normal.

      Sarcasm is easily detectible. It’s hard to explain, but if you spend enough time around people, you’ll hear it.