A quick one for today. The other day I heard an Indonesian Chinese speaker refer to her (paternal) grandparents as “奶奶爷爷”. This immediately struck my ear as strange, as it’s usually said as “爷爷奶奶”. It then got me thinking about how it’s funny that languages tend to have fairly fixed order for what sounds most natural with ‘A and B’ sorts of noun-phrases.
For most native English speakers, ‘Mum and dad’ sounds right, whereas ‘Dad and mum’ sounds quite odd. ‘Nanna and grandpa’ sounds okay, but ‘grandpa and nanna’ is weird. Likewise, ‘son and daughter’ sounds more natural than ‘daughter and son’. So from these few examples, we might assume that in English, we put females first and males second. But then, why do we say ‘brother and sister’ instead of ‘sister and brother’? And why ‘prince and princess’ instead of ‘princess and prince’?
For the Chinese learners in the room, it can be useful to know the natural sounding orders for this kind of ‘A and B’ phrase under the Chinese conception, as it’s one small detail that can really kill the authenticity of your Chinese if you get them the wrong way around. Here are some examples for you that differ from the most natural-sounding order in English:
- 爸爸妈妈、父母亲 ‘mum and dad’ (literally: ‘dad and mum’)
- 爷爷奶奶 ‘gran and grandad’ (literally: ‘grandad and grandma)
- 我和你 ‘you and me’ (literally: ‘me and you’)
- 椒盐 ‘salt and pepper’ (literally: ‘pepper and salt’)
- 纸和笔 ‘pen and paper’ (literally: ‘paper and pen’)
- 东南西北 ‘North, South, East and West’ (literally: ‘East, South, West and North’)
- 猫和狗 ‘dog and cat’ (literally: ‘cat and dog’)
- 听、说 ‘speaking and listening’ (literally: ‘listening and speaking’)
- 月亮、太阳 ‘the sun and the moon’ (literally: ‘the moon and the sun’)
中文秘诀 | The Secret of Chinese 