Bonnie & Clyde

Just submitted a few song's lyrics to a fren. Not too thrill about it as I've found being a bit rusty for stopping to write seriously for so long.

He emailed back. "What's up with those "X"s in your stuff?"

Oh yes, I've forgotten to tell you; those are all chinese lyrics.

"I didnt know how to write those words."

"Idiot. You're using a computer to type. For PinYin, all you need to know is how the word sounds like and you could've found the matching word!"


Er....... sorry dude. This's actually my problem. I can write the words in handwriting but I do not know how to read it.

Since secondary school, in chinese classes, I have been facing this problem. Sometimes when the teacher was very happy with an essay I wrote and she asked me to read the essay out loud to the whole class, I could never finish reading it. The more effort I put in writing it, the more difficult for me to read it.

The real truth is, I learn many words from reading and I use them in my writing but, me=lazy, I have never flipped the dictionary to find out how those words should be pronounced! Everytime I wrote a good piece of work, I would have been the laughing stock of the class. This's the worst during my form 4 and form 5 years where my teacher was enjoying that so much. I am the one who cant read what I wrote.

For all of those who do not know chinese, chinese is one weird language which words do not contain any vowel or consonant. You cant look at word and guess how it would sound like. If you do not know how the word is pronounced, you dont know how to read it .


"So? Am I supposed to guess what the missing words are and fill it up for you? If not how do you think the producer will react? Even though you're freelance, must be more professional. Piece like this with all these "X"s here and there might just been thrown into trash bin before even it'll be read........"

Suddenly he reminded me of my secondary school chinese teacher. I think I should really spend more time listening to 988 than Hitz.

Chinese speaking 101.