Harder Than Chinese Arithmetic

Here’s a couple of fascinating little tidbits I learned this evening in Chinese class.  First, their word for “sun.” In Pinyin this is rì.  The accent mark indicates the 4th tone, spoken in a sharp, downward manner.  See if you can guess how to pronounce this word.  I promise you, there’s nothing in English which even comes close.

Okay, now click here to actually hear someone say it.  On the top line of the Chinese characters you’ll see rì.  Click this and you’ll hear a sound file with it being spoken.  Basically it’s like saying “Rrryuuuh.”

Next up, I’ve spoken many times about how the Chinese will create words which are transliterations from English.  One good example is “chocolate,” which the Chinese call qiǎo kè lì.  This is, phonetically pronounced, similar to “Chow kuh luh.” However, while a word like “chocolate” seems an obvious choice for transliteration, see if you can guess what this word is:  dīng kè.

Give up?  That’s the English language acronym DINK, meaning Double Income No Kids.

Here’s another transliterated word:  jiǔ bā.  I’ll give you a clue, the only transliterated word is bā.  Here’s another hint, jiǔ means “liquor.” That’s right, the word bā comes from the English word “bar.” Here in China, though, the word “bar” has different meanings.  What we would call an “internet cafe” is, in direct Chinese, called a “net bar”:  wǎng bā.  The word wǎng literally means “net,” such as a fisherman would use to catch a fish or the string cylinder in basketball.  So in Chinese, if you want to go to a bar, you have to specify a “liquor bar” or the taxi driver won’t have a clue what you mean.