Ta mu ke lu si

If you've ever wondered how many syllables Tom Cruise become when transliterated in Chinese, it's 5. Ta mu ke lu si. One of the peculiarities of the Chinese language is that there are no syllables with two consonants in a row. Same goes for Japanese, which is why their speech sounds so machine-gunnish. That means words like schlargleclpctple (a rare dinosaur, even rarer than the other extinct 100% that are extinct) takes 3-4 times longer to pronounce in Chinese. So when we're reading together about Jesus' adventures in India and words come up with two consonants in a row that Yuan Yuan doesn't already know, she'll liberally sprinkle them with vowels. When I stop her and demand patronizingly if there's a vowel after the 's' in swill, and if there's not, why she's pronouncing it 'seewill,' she just bats her eyelashes at me innocently. When I'm well hydrated, I'll ask her how the consonant is pronounced on its own without a vowel before or after it.

Me: how do you pronounce the letter 's'?
Yuan Yuan: ess?
Me: no
Yuan Yuan: suh?
Me: no
Yuan Yuan: see?
Me: no
Yuan Yuan: suh?
Me: no, you've already tried that one!
Yuan Yuan: so?
Me: so it's still wrong!
Yuan Yuan: no, I mean it's pronounced 'so'!
Me: it most definitely is not
Yuan Yuan: then what is it?
Me: keep trying. Don't put any vowels after it, just give me the naked consonant.
Yuan Yuan: ooh, naked...
Me: don't get distracted!
Yuan Yuan: ugh...suh?
Me: no!
Yuan Yuan: I don't like this game.
Me: it's 'sssss'!
Yuan Yuan: suhwill?
Me: no! It's swill!
Yuan Yuan: swill. Got it. "He took a swill of his drink and suhpatuh it back out."
Me: spat!
Yuan Yuan: I know, I was just testing you

Somehow, despite the multitude of rather thick hints, it never occurred to me that Yuan Yuan simply didn't know how the consonants were pronounced on their own. I thought about teaching her, but then I got scared. Is she too old to learn? If I teach her, will her brain restructure itself completely? Is this ignorance what keeps her so childlike and lighthearted? How do I prevent her from figuring them out on her own one day? This must have been what Johnny Cash was talking about when he wrote I Walk The Line.