Job Discussion Forums

[themanymoonsofjupiter]

in three years in china, i've had just one person call money "yuan", always instead using "kuai." yet every time i mention the price of something in class, my students correct my usage of "kuai" to "yuan." they are usually persistent about this. what's the deal?

[Chris_Crossley]

I couldn't possibly think what "the deal" could be!

Wherever I go, the word "kuai" is the norm!

You could always meet them halfway by referring to the currency as RMB!

[peruisay]

"Kuai" is more slangy.

[Chris_Crossley]

The students' objections sound completely absurd to me.

That would be like foreign students in England complaining to their teacher about calling pounds sterling "quid" when citing prices.

Similarly, it would be like foreign students in the U.S. complaining when their teacher refers to dollars as "bucks".

It sounds like snobbery - if, indeed, one could, from our standpoint, conceive of Chinese people as "snobs"; the concept of snobbery probably exists in every culture even though it may not be necessarily easily equated with what we Western types consider as "snobbery" in our sense of the word.

[Jayray]

I have NEVER heard a student refer to yuan as kuai.

Perhaps the students are trying to maintain a level of formality in class.

[thefuzz]

Same thing happened to me on a few occasions...students telling me I shouldn't say "kuai" and use "yuan" instead. Why? Not sure...I asked them and they refused to tell me.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

Buck / Dollar

Kuai / Yuan

Quid / Pound

[Zero]

Are you speaking English or Chinese, overall, when this comes up?

Kuai is actually a measure word, not a noun. It is used for any currency. When Chinese living in the U.S. talk about prices in American dollars, they still use "kuai."

Yuan is a noun. It refers specifically to Chinese money.

In an English sentence, to throw in something like "50 kuai" isn't too helpful. English doesn't need the measure word. And it leaves the sentence ambiguous as to which currency you are talking about. To use "yuan" makes more sense, because it answers the question "50 what?" whereas "kuai" does not.

In a Chinese sentence, the kuai is needed. You do not actually hear "yuan" much. If it is not clear what currency you are talking about, you have to specify "50 kuai renminbi" or "50 kuai meiyuan" or whatever the currency may be.

To sum up, I could see them correcting you if you are saying "50 kuai" in the midst of an English sentence, but not in a Chinese sentence.

[themanymoonsofjupiter]

zero,

you're right. i at one point learned that about "kuai", but certainly had forgotten it, and i assume that's their problem with me saying it as such. (you usually do hear native speakers saying "____ kuai qian, supporting this.) yes, i am speaking english when i say this. however, though it may grammatically leave the sentence ambiguous of which currency i'm talking about, it's quite obvious from context.

that said, my biggest reason for not wanting to deviate from this is because "kuai" sounds fine & natural in the context of an english sentence, while "yuan" is either butchered by being given an english pronunciation, or sounds out of place pronounced in proper chinese.

[Chris_Crossley]

Lest anyone forget, the Chinese append "yuan" to make composite names for foreign currencies, so the U.S. dollar is referred to officially as the "mei yuan".

[wangdaning]

Maybe use RMB or renmenbi 人民币 instead. It is as natural as kuai but doesn't leave ambiguity. Though it should be clear to them what you are talking about, because they would never use kuai to talk about foreign currency inside of China. It would be waibi 外币, meiyuan 美元, yingbang 英镑, ect.

Chinese have gotten lazy, so they usually drop the qian 钱 when talking about money. They often drop the mao 毛 also. So you hear things like liang kuai wu 两块五 (2.50). It gets bad in the hundreds because they say liang bai wu 两百 五 (250 or 205) leaving out the kuai and possibly the shi 十. It should mean 205. However it has blended with 250, so now that they confused it they compensate with liang bai ling wu 两百 零 五(200 0 5). Not to mention that some people use er 二 instead of liang 两. Chinese is easy, but it seems there are people working to make it harder. I can't say English is not the same though.

[Chris_Crossley]

It becomes even more confusing, not to mention irritating, when Chinese people quote prices in foreign currency as if they were quoting from their own when using the decimal point.

By this, I mean something like saying "nineteen point five dollars" instead of "nineteen dollars fifty" when the price of an item is $19.50.

I should know because my wife of 7 1/2 years keeps making this same basic mistake!

[cmknight]

You have to be careful with liang bai wu and er bai wu. I said er bai wu one time and everyone laughed. When I asked my wife why, she said er bai wu meant 'crazy'.

[Mister Al]

Your students hate you.

[living&learning]

Must have stiff students.

I use kuai/renminbi/qian at random - they know what I'm talking about.

When I mention Twn currency I use kuai, and they sometimes correct me, and say Tai bi, so they can recalculate their internal calculators..