Phrase, Turned

Tea: Mandarin Green

Music: The Rainmakers, "Little Tiny World"

Time: Night.

One thing I've heard from Westerners trying to learn tonal languages is how frustrating it can be to master inflections. Here, a rising note at the end of a syllable changes a statement to a question. In, say, Mandarin Chinese, it could turn a noun into a verb or a greeting into meaningless babble.

On the flip side, think how hard it must be for others to learn how inflection can take English phrases and reverse them.

"Yeah, yeah ..." vs. "Yeah! Yeah!" is the easiest example. Others can be harder to decode.

Take "Bless your heart." Said solicitiously, with "heart" becoming a two-syllable word rising at the end, it's a statement of thanks or commiseration. Put on a honey-sweet tone, and stress the "bless," and it becomes Southern for "Up yours, Jack."

Then there's "You're better than that." The faster and flatter you say it, the less you mean it. Stretch out the "better," and it becomes an exhortation to be better, rather than a slap for not having been better.

And finally, we have "It's up to you." Put the emphasis (and a peaking inflection) on "you," and it's genuine. When "up" is uppermost, any concessions made after that point are likely to be grudging. (See also "Whatever you say.")

So, to all you people who think English is so easy that immigrants should be able to learn it within, say, a few months of arriving here, I reply:

"Uh-huh."

You guess the inflection.