One of the pieces I’d set for Listening Comprehension for the Tuesday group features a Brit called Thomas who is a new colleague at the bank of the speaker (/storyteller).
The Chinese rendition of Thomas is 湯姆/汤姆 Tāngmǔ, which is supposed to be purely phonetic, as it’s a Western name, therefore whichever characters that happen to fit the sounds in the original.
(The Chinese wicked sense of humour, however, means that, wherever possible from the range of homophones available, those characters will often be chosen for the meanings behind them to reflect their opinion of the target — either to have a laugh at them, or, worse, to show contempt. More in another blog.)
I often say outrageous things to attract the students’ attention (and laughter), which will therefore act as a mnemonic as well, so I give them the literal breakdown of 湯姆/汤姆 Tāngmǔ: “soup nanny”. Thereafter, whenever we dipped into the next paragraph, he’d get referred to as Soup Nanny.
At one point of the story, Thomas and French wife are invited to a reception held by the bank, to welcome them. The Chinese colleagues try to teach the couple how to use chopsticks, with the wife quickly succeeding, but Thomas still unable to grasp [ha! pun!] the technique after a long while.
Singaporean Amy Lim in the class piped up: “He won’t need to learn how to use chopsticks, since he is a Soup Nanny!”
These students are really catching on...
(London, 2023)
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