Info

Album: 愛的練習語 / Love Exercise (Buy Album)

Artist: 蔡依林 / Jolin Tsai

Release Date: November 4, 2008

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Tracklisting:

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Blurb

Now, we’re not going to make a regular point of covering English songs on this website, but we have a bunch of comments positively wondering about how Jolin sounds like singing English songs.

Essentially, this album, Love Exercise (愛的練習語) - it’s a collection of various English hits over the last few decades and of various genres. It took me a while to look up every single song, but I think I have them down right - I was interested myself in what songs specifically had she covered, since there were a few of which I had not heard before.

Overall, my take is that having the same artist do so many different songs kind of makes it feel a bit bland - it’s nothing on Jolin, but rather, I would think that this should happen for any singer trying to do so many songs. However, I think she does a great job at really trying to capture the essence of the songs.

Just for some comedy, and for any fellow Office fans out there, catch this after the jump of Physical.
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Possibly Related Posts:

• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says
• Chinglish: S.H.E - Super Star

Info

Song: 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable

Artist: J.Wu (feat. MC Hot Dog & 大支)

Album: 本色 / Original Colors

Released: July 25, 2008

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Blurb

Recently, I figured out how to tune in to HitFM (Taiwan’s premier music radio station) via my Mac, and one of the songs that was played was this - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable (是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服). It has one of the longest names I have ever seen in a Chinese song.

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Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says
• Chinglish: S.H.E - Super Star

Info

Song: So So

Album: Vivi And… (Buy Album)

Artist: 徐若瑄 / Vivian Hsu

Released: September 19, 2006

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Review

Fifth of our coverage of great Chinglish songs, this leads us to 徐若瑄, or Vivian Hsu. An opinion my friends and I ended forming was that Vivian Hsu is like Catherine Zeta-Jones - sure, they’re old (Vivian’s 32, and Zeta-Jones 38) but they still look damn hot. (Feel free to disagree)

So, even after over a decade of acting and singing (and modeling for photoshots), her last studio album, Vivi And… (released in 2006) had many great songs - another favourite one of mine is 小女, but it’s not a Chinglish song so we can’t feature it here. But So So, featuring Nicky Lee (李玖哲) - I remember having a heated debate with classmates over whether he could speak Chinese or not… Turns out he can, of course, though in So So he primarily raps in English, and the most Chinese he speaks is “I Say Baby過來給我抱抱.”

I love this song - especially how the lyrics are structured, with two of the same words to accentuate “so-so”. Be sure to also check out Vivian’s incredibly sexy music video as well.
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Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says
• Chinglish: S.H.E - Super Star

Info

Song: 等不及 / Can’t Wait

Album: 天使 / Angel

Artist: 徐懷鈺 / Yuki Hsu

Released: June 1999

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Blurb

Fourth in our Chinglish song coverage, here’s another nice oldie - this one, perhaps Yuki’s last popular song/album. (Her new one last year, Bad Girl, didn’t do too well and had the unfortunate misfortune of being released on the same week as S.H.E’s Play.) A collaboration with Korean artist Yoo Seung Jun (Hanja: 劉承俊), it is a mix of Chinese pop and English rap.

It seems to have become particularly popular among the ABCs, especially, perhaps because some of them can actually understand a “Chinese” song through the English.
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Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says
• Chinglish: S.H.E - Super Star

Info

Song: 子曰 / Confucius Says

Album: 我愛阿亮 / I Love Ah Liang

Artist: 卜學亮 / Charge Pu

Released: January 12, 2000

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Blurb

Third in our Chinglish series is - talk about an old song - this song was released eight years ago! It is sung by Charge Pu, or better known as Ah Liang 阿亮, who is actually a comedian and TV show host. I love this song for a few reasons: One, the lyrics are fun - look at how many times there’s “子” in it! Secondly, the lyrics actually have meaning and are things we should generally aspire to. Third, it really expresses what most people feel when they read Confucian texts: “我聽不懂　看不懂　學不懂　都不懂.” (I can’t understand it, I can’t learn it… I don’t know anything at all.) This song never goes old.

Also check out the extremely weird (and green) music after the break. His hairstyle then makes him look like a carrot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: S.H.E - Super Star

Info

Song: Super Star

Album: Super Star (Buy Album）

Artist: S.H.E

Released: August 22, 2003

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Blurb

Second Chinglish song: You can pretty much tell a song is going to be a Chinglish song if there are no Chinese characters whatsoever in the title or the artist’s name. Yet, Super Star was S.H.E’s biggest hit/single for many years, all the way until 中國話 came out last year. With an addicting chorus and beat, no wonder it was that popular, and even today it’s still often requested for KTVing. If you haven’t heard it before, well… You’re missing out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says

Info

Song: Fly Away

Album: 飛兒樂團 / F.I.R. （Buy Album）

Artist: 飛兒樂團 / F.I.R.

Released: April 23, 2004

Listen

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Blurb

This is perhaps the best example of Chinglish in a Chinese song - Nothing I Will Be Afraid… Seriously? Now, don’t get me wrong - I like this song very much, but couldn’t they used a line that sounds less cheesy? Like, perhaps.. I Will Never Be Afraid? Their debut album was definitely great (in fact, I know some of their fans wish their latest hits could be more like the original), but it’s unfortunate that one of the hits furthers the stereotype that Chinese people can’t translate. Music video after the jump (the English is in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in the music video, hah!)

Music Video

Lyrics ▼

Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says

We all know those songs - songs that mix English and Chinese with reckless abandon, and sometimes, they actually make sense! But yet, plenty of hit songs do mix the two most popular languages on Earth together, and that’s what this series is all about. We’re not going to go over anything we’ve covered already, so there’s lots of new blood and old classics, including some from 1999. Let it begin! We’ll be posting about 10 of them.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says