jeezoh loves you!

Alright, we’ve decided to open up Jeezoh so now all can register and try it out. There are some bugs that we are working on or aware of, so we apologize in advance for the problems you may encounter. In particular if you record and submit an audio you may encounter an error that says “Uh oh, I think I smell the Jeezoh server burning!!” Don’t worry though, you’re audio has been submitted and is in the review section awaiting review.

Anyway, do tell us about what you like and don’t like. We are constantly looking for ways to improve. Thanks!

JEEZOH IS OPEN!

My sister was kind enough to animate our logo for a school project she did. I was very impressed how she was able to take my hastily sketched out ideas for the animation into something that worked. I added some music just to make it a little more lively. Here are three different versions with definitely different “attitudes”…

This one I call “Dramatic Jeezoh”

This one I call “Ghetto Jeezoh”

This one is call “Countrytime Jeezoh”

I was browsing online when I found this interesting headline “Girl’s Chinese Tattoo of Boyfriend’s Name Really Spells ‘Supermarket’” which is a link to a video story featured on Breitbart.tv. I had wrote in a previous post about the funny and incorrect Chinese tattoos that many westerner’s end up getting. Like a person wanting a tattoo of “tank” and instead getting the Chinese character for “toilet.” Fun stuff like that.

Anyway, if you don’t want to watch the whole video, the story is of Joanne and Andrew. The two were in love so they decided to get engaged . To “express” their love they didn’t get a fancy ring instead they decided to get their significant other’s name in Chinese tattooed on each other’s body. Joanne got “Roo” or “Rew” (Andrew’s nickname) tattooed on her stomach. I took a screen shot of her tattoo, observe below:

Here’s where things get interesting. If she really wanted Andrew’s name in Chinese she could have went with 安德鲁 (an1de2lu3 you can also view the entry in the jeezoh dictionary). But what she got “盟联行” (méng lián {háng,xíng}) doesn’t really sound like “Andrew.” What I find even funnier about this story is how “盟联行” doesn’t mean “supermarket” like the story indicated (at least I couldn’t find any translation that translated this as supermarket). Instead the closest translation I got was from google translate which translated “盟联行” into “UNITA, with a.” As an English speaker I have no idea what “UNITA, with a” means, but I’m pretty sure it’s not “supermarket.”

I don’t know which is more embarrassing, the fact that Joanne got a gibberish Chinese tattooed on her body, or the fact that this news report didn’t do any fact checking on this story. With the tools out there they could have verified this story pretty easily. But then again this headline is more interesting…so maybe they just wanted eyeballs to watch their video, but we know they are wrong. I would like to say there was a happy ending to the Joanne and Andrew story, but turns out they broke up. At least she doesn’t have his name tattooed on her for life. Instead she just has to look for a guy named “Menglin Sheen” (that’s that’s the closest thing I could come up with to match 盟联行).

About a month or two ago I wrote about Kevin Rudd, now the Prime Minister of Australia, and how he could speak Mandarin fluently. From the little I heard I definitely could tell that he was pretty good, but I wasn’t exactly sure how could. I found this video from another blogging site called lostlaowai . It’s a video of Kevin Rudd being interviewed on Chinese Central Television.

What’s amazing is he is able to conduct the whole interview in Chinese! And if you watch the whole thing he is very fluent. For all the years I went to Chinese school I still have trouble understanding some of the vocabulary he uses. I’m really impressed by his skill. Not only does he speak very fluently, but his pronunciation is excellent as well.

I was reading from the lostlaowai blog post that many Chinese people like Kevin Rudd because of the fact that he does speak Chinese. There aren’t many leaders of nations that speak foreign languages well (aside from some of the leaders of European nations). It’s funny how just by speaking someone’s language how much more receptive and likeable you become. I think it has to do with the fact that if you put in the time to study the language you ended up learning more of the culture which makes you more understanding of that nation’s people. If only George Bush would spend the time to learn some Chinese. Maybe Jeezoh will be able to help him one day…

..or maybe not. Maybe he first should improve his English before he tackles Mandarin! By the way, if you listen closely to his mistakes they are pretty funny. The one’s I like are…

• “I know the human being and FISH can co-exist peacefully…
• “America needs a military where are BREAST and brightest are willing to serve…
• “Too many OBGYN’s aren’t able to practice their love with women

For any non-native English speakers out there, hopefully you can see where he messed up and what he was trying to say…though personally I’m still confused about humans an fish living peacefully together.

This post was inspired by Ed, one of Jeezoh’s co-founders and warrior coder. A couple of months ago he showed us this video of a Hong Kong man yelling (in Cantonese) at this young man who was sitting behind him. I don’t understand any Cantonese, but it’s clear the man is not happy. Check it out below (apologies if you can’t view the videos in China, youtube may be blocked):

It’s pretty cool how they have it subtitled in both Chinese and English. What’s even funnier is that a group of Americans have done their own reenactment of this bus scene done in English this time with Chinese subtitles.

Pretty creative stuff. Everyone is under pressure!