How to say “spaghetti” in Chinese (London)

When I was teaching evening classes in Chinese for adults, the first beginners’ lesson covered self introductions, which included saying which country one came from.  This was easy, thus boosting the students’ confidence, because a lot of country names in Chinese sound like the original.  I told the students that the Chinese versions of foreign names (personal or geographical) are usually stretched-out versions of the original, e.g., Yìn-dù-ní-xī-yà for Indonesia, Luó-mǎ-ní-yà for Romania, Mǎ-lái-xī-yà for Malaysia.  I said that even if they had not learned it, they just had to utter the foreign version with every syllable enunciated, slowly and with emphasis, and it’d be very similar to how it’d be in Chinese.

For the next lesson, we moved on to food and drink, amongst which were chǎo fàn (fried rice), chǎo miàn (fried noodles—what used to be rendered as chow mien in recipe books and on menus in Chinese restaurants and takeaways), and miàn tiáo (“wheat-flour strings” / noodles).  I wanted to start teaching the students how the Chinese language deals with foreign concepts, using “spaghetti” as an example.  As they’d learned the Chinese version of Italy (Yìdàlì) in Lesson One, I asked them, “So, what is spaghetti in Chinese?”, expecting them to put Yìdàlì and miàn tiáo together to form “Italian noodles”.  

In unison, the whole class replied, slowly and with emphasis, “SPA-GHE-TTI !!”

(London 1985)