My father, of course, figured this out too. So then, much to my brother’s surprise, instead of hearing “Hit, and you’ve sunk my battle ship” after each shot, he was hearing my father say, “Miss!”

I stayed (uncharacteristically) quiet just to watch the action unfold naturally. At one point I actually heard my brother mutter to himself, “Hmm…I can’t remember where that one is.”

My father heard it too and replied, “That’s because I just moved all my ships.”

My brother, incensed, shouted, “Hey, that’s cheating!”

What’s That Got to Do with Chinese?

I would like to submit that one possible Chinese translation for my brother’s final shout could be:

Zuòbì, hǎo bù hǎo! 作弊, 好不好!
Hey, that’s cheating!

I’ve been trying to figure out how to translate a special use of hǎo bù hǎo  好不好. I propose that it could be translated as:

…hǎo bù hǎo! …好不好!
Hey that’s…!

It’s strange because hǎo bù hǎo 好不好 is usually a question meaning “ok?” or “Would that be ok?” But I recently heard it used in two situations that lead me believe it’s more of a “Hey!” sort of exclamation.

Situation 1

My students were all preparing for an oral English exam in another class in which they would have to answer the question: “Are women and men equal?” or something like that. Most of the students had already taken the test, but one student was ill or something and was going to take it right after my class. She asked me if I could tell her my opinion. When another student heard her ask me, she obviously thought it wasn’t fair for the foreign teacher to help only one student when all the others had taken it on their own. She shouted:

Zuòbì, hǎo bù hǎo! 作弊, 好不好!

Now, I’m sure she didn’t mean:

How about you cheat, ok?

Even though that’s what it sounded like at first.

Situation 2

During a little “Chinese corner” practice group, an American colleague of mine asked the Chinese native speaker in the group how to say something in Chinese (I can’t remember what). She told him but he kept proposing an alternative word, insisting that it was right. She’d never heard it. Finally, he said, “Well, when I was in Sichuan they always said that.”

She slapped a hand on the table and said:

Nà shì Sìchuan huà, hǎo bù hǎo! 那是四川话, 好不好!

We then discussed this little hǎo bù hǎo 好不好 for quite a while and I think it really meant:

Hey, that’s Sichuanese!

The underlying message being: “(So why are you asking me about that? You know full well that I’m not from Sichuan!)”

Anyone else heard this anywhere? Any alternative translations that I should consider?

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“Nán zuǒ nǚ yòu” 男左女右 [boy left girl right]

This seems to be a common/traditional way of arranging a boy and a girl for a picture or on stage hosting an event, etc. Also, while it’s not 100% consistent, I started looking at xǐ shǒu jiān 洗手间 arrangement and noticed that most follow the same pattern.

I asked my students what the origin of this little phrase is. One student said that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, the doctor would take the pulse (bǎ mài 把脉, for you Word Hogs) of men using the patient’s left wrist and use the right wrist of a woman patient.

Also, apparently a married man puts his wedding ring (if he has one) on his left hand’s ring finger and a woman on her right hand’s ring finger.

Has anyone else:

1) Heard this phrase?

2) Noticed it’s usage beyond photos,  toilets, and wedding rings?

3) Learned the origin of where this came from?

If so, please enlighten us (or at least me).

(from left to right) CCTV’s Zhū Jūn 朱军 and Dǒng Qīng 董卿

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• Addressing strangers
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• Bù le 不了: So Simple, So Unknown to Foreigners

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

as well as:

“It is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hand.”

But there are no references for either. I’d like to learn the Chinese for one or both of those.

So can anyone confirm that those are actually Chinese idioms by giving us the hanzi for either?

On a more general note, this little wèntí 问题 clearly shows one the of the gaps in the Chinese-learning resources market: a complete and easily searchable proverb and idiom dictionary for Chinese and English. Does anyone have a favorite they’d like to recommend?

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Bù le 不了 = No thanks (I don’t want to do something)

It’s not really “no thanks,” because there’s no xiè 谢 in there, but it does mean “no” and I get the feeling it’s used in situations where we would say “no thanks.”

Apparently, it’s best used between friends or someone you can speak informally with rather than shop owners or your boss. Here are the two situations in which I’ve heard it used:

1. A friend on her balcony waving to a friend walking past:

A: Nǐ yào bú yào shàng lái hē chá? 你要不要上来喝茶?
Do you want to come up and have some tea?

B: Bù le. Wǒ huí qù le.  不了. 我回去了.
No thanks. I’m going home.

As I understand it, in this situation “bù le” 不了 is short for “bú yòng le” 不用了 meaning “that’s not necessary.” But that explanation doesn’t really help me because if I were inviting you for tea, I wouldn’t assume it was necessary. Again, that’s why I translate it as “no thanks.”

2. Two friends (A and B) chatting at a sidewalk cafe. A third friend (C) walks past.

A: Nǐ hǎo! Gēn wǒmen yìqǐ chīfàn ba. 你好！跟我们一起吃饭吧.
Hi! Eat with us.

C:  Bù le. Wǒ yǐjīng chī le. 不了. 我已经吃了.
No thanks. I already ate.

Notice in both situations they are friends. Also notice that “bù le” 不了 is immediately followed by a jièkǒu 借口 of some sort.

Does anyone else have some insight into this little nugget? Please enlighten us.

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Nǐ 你 and nín 您 can be interchanged depending how formal you want to be. And you may or may not need a”zhù nǐ/nín” 祝你/您 (“wishing you”) before each of these.

Special thanks to Sheila at ChineseTeachers.com for helping fill out this list.

Year of the Tiger Messages

zhù nǐ/nín 祝你/您… = Wishing you…

1. hǔ nián kuàilè 虎年快乐 = Happy Year of the Tiger
2. hǔ nián jíxiáng 虎年吉祥 = Have a lucky Year of the Tiger
3. hǔ nián xíng dà yùn 虎年行大运 = May the Year of the Tiger bring you great luck
4. xīhǔ zhù nín hǔ nián wàng 犀虎祝您虎年旺 = May the rhinoceros-tiger bring you a prosperous Year of the Tiger*

Standard New Year’s Greetings

1. dà jí dà lì 大吉大利 = Good luck and good profit (see also New Year’s puns)
2. gōnghè xīnxǐ 恭贺新喜 = Happy New Year
3. gōngxǐ fācái 恭喜发财 = get rich
4. guò nián hǎo 过年好 = Happy New Year
5. jiā hé wàn shì xīng 家和万事兴 = If the family lives in harmony, all affairs will prosper
6. niánnián gāoshēng 年年高升 = get a promotion every year
7. shēntǐ jiànkāng 身体健康 = have good health
8. shìshì rúyì 事事如意 = everything go according to your wishes
9. shìshì shùnlì 事事順利 = everything go smoothly
10. wànshì rúyì 万事如意 = all your wishes come true
11. xīnnián kuàilè 新年快乐 = Happy New Year
12. xīn xiǎng shì chéng = wishes come true
13. xiàokǒu chángkāi 笑口常开 = always smile

Heart Marathon

Sheila also gave me this as an example of a longer message friends might send to each other. This one features the character for “heart” at the end of every line:

hǔ nián zhùyuàn nín: gōngzuò shūxīn, xīnshuǐ héxīn, bèiwō nuǎnxīn, péngyou zhīxīn, àirén tóngxīn, yíqiè shùnxīn, yǒngyuǎn kāixīn, shìshì chènxīn
虎年祝愿您：工作舒心，薪水合心，被窝暖心，朋友知心，爱人同心，一切顺心，永远开心，事事称心！

Here’s the breakdown:

hǔ nián zhùyuàn nín 虎年祝愿您… = this Year of the Tiger I wish you…

• gōngzuò shūxīn 工作舒心 = comfortable work
• xīnshuǐ héxīn 薪水合心 = suitable salary
• bèiwō nuǎn xīn 被窝暖心 = warm-hearted bed
• péngyou zhīxīn 朋友知心 = caring friends
• àirén tóngxīn 爱人同心 = harmonious marriage
• yíqiè shùnxīn 一切顺心 = happy everything
• yǒngyuǎn kāixīn 永远开心 = eternal happiness
• shìshì chènxīn 事事称心 = everything satisfactory

Anyone else know any other standard New Year’s greetings we can send as text messages? Do share.

*Apparently there are five kinds of tigers in traditional Chinese lore. Here’s Sheila’s explanation:

五虎给你来拜年，犀虎祝您虎年旺，奶虎愿您体健康，黄虎为您送事业，水虎给您保平安，犛虎伴您游天下。

I think I’ll save a more in-depth look at that (and pinyin transcription) for a later post, unless someone else would like to explicate that and give me the link. That would be even better!

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xuétóu 噱头

If you click on the hanzi above you’ll be taken to MDBG where you see that it’s more like “antics” or “shenanigans” than stunts that a stuntman would do. That’s fine. The definition seemed appropriate enough.

The problem was, no one in the room of about eight Chinese university students knew how to pronounce the first character: 噱. Even one student who got a 98 percent (giving him the highest grade possible) on the Mandarin Test (pǔtōnghuà cèshì 普通话测试, discussed briefly here) didn’t know how to pronounce it.

Finally, someone looked it up in a cell phone or electronic dictionary that had pinyin and announced it was “xue2.” I guess it’s such an obscure character that it doesn’t really belong on David Moser’s list of common yet hard Hanzi. But still, good thing pinyin exists. Otherwise, they would have had méi bànfǎ 没办法 to find out how to say it.

According to MDBG, when it’s by itself, 噱 should be pronounced “jue2,” but Nciku lists it as “xue2″ in isolation as well as in compounds. Can anyone confirm which is correct?

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Here’s the editor’s purpose statement:

Frequently, readers ask us for help when new Chinese phrases or terms pop up in the press or daily conversations. In an attempt to improve the rendering of such terms in English, we have decided to introduce the weekly “Buzzwords” column starting from today (2005-10-07).

This column has three purposes: first, to provide a tentative English translation of new Chinese terms and phrases that have recently appeared in the press as a reference for our readers; second, to tell our readers what are the latest buzzwords in the local press; and third, to invite readers to help us generate better translations.

A lot of the terms seem to be internet and high tech vocabulary.

If you’re interested, they also have information on that same page about contests they hold for the best English translation of these new words.

I’ve added the RSS feed for Buzzword to the iGoogle page (in the middle column). If you’d like it to appear on your Google home page, with all the other (currently 41) feeds to pick and choose from, please get the latest version of the page by clicking this button (it’s free):

Add “Learn Chinese” to iGoogle

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• Field Notes

wúnài 无奈

As you can see from the two dictionary links, wúnài 无奈 is sometimes translated as “helpless” or “without choice.” That fits with this situation in which I heard it used recently:

Story 1

I went with a student to a Guangzhou radio station. We were each supposed to record a short interview for some show about campus life or something. After I recorded my interview, the station personnel told the student that they didn’t have time for her interview that day. She’d have to come back some other day. As we were leaving I told her how sorry I was that she’d spent over an hour on the bus getting to the station, and even ditched her afternoon class but didn’t do a thing. She said:

wǒ hěn wúnài 我很无奈

I guess that should be translated as, “There’s nothing I can do about it” or maybe “I feel helpless,” right? I kind of get the feeling that it has the connotation of “Yeah, this is bad but there’s nothing I can do about it.” At least that’s how I try to connect this story with the next one:

Story 2

Some friends and I were watching the semi-finals of the Guangzhou Open (not a huge tournament on the pro circuit) a few weekends ago and some sports journalism majors from Guangzhou Sports University sat with us. They started talking to us and one of the topics of conversation (that they brought up, mind you) was the crowd of xiǎoxuéshēng 小学生, all wearing matching hats, who had been bused in for the first match. The guy told us the kids don’t know (or care) anything about tennis. The organizers just wanted the bleachers to look full for the TV cameras. I nodded in understanding and the guy said:

hěn wúnài, shì ba? 很无奈是吧?

I tried to clarify with him “What is wúnài? This situation? Your feelings? My feelings?” But, as so often happens to me, the water just got muddier and, in the end, I gave up trying to get him to explain what he meant.

I’m constantly stumped when students ask me in class how to say “wúnài” in English. I usually just tell them to go with “helpless” but I don’t know if that’s the best translation, and I don’t know how it would apply to the second story. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions, or guidance, please comment away.

In closing, here’s the first time I ever heard the word:

[See original post to listen to audio]

(from Bù de bú ài 不得不爱 by 潘玮柏, lyrics here)

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In an attempt to stay topical and current in my English classes leading up to China’s liùshí zhōunián guóqìng 六十周年国庆 (and I’m talking zhōusuì 周岁, by the way), I’ve let the students discuss various related subjects in our class such as what will happen this year to celebrate the founding of the country and what changes the country has gone through in the past 60 years.

(As a side note, I was stumped, again, when a student said that part of the celebration will be yuèbīng 阅兵 and didn’t know how to say it in English. Knowing full well that Zhōngqiūjié 中秋节 will be right in the middle of this year’s Guóqìngjié 国庆节 I proudly announced that the most common translation is “moon cakes.” Never before has the class been so active. “Not yuèbǐng 月饼, we’re talking about yuèbīng 阅兵!” they shouted as I suppressed every instinct I had to launch into a rant about the tones and listening comprehension. Breathe. Yes. It’s OK.)

One of the discussion questions was:

“What do the stars on the guóqí 国旗 stand for?”

I really wanted to know. It’s my fifth year enjoying the not-really-a-whole-week-of-vacation-because-we-have-to-make-up-classes-on-the-weekends, so it’s high time I learned that little factoid.

The big star is certainly the Communist Party (Gòngchǎndǎng 共产党). But surprisingly, the students (in every class) couldn’t agree on what the four small stars stand for. So out came the shǒujī-s 手机 with their mobile internet browsers and that’s when the debate finally got rolling.

One student was adamant that the four yellow stars stand for:

1. nóngmín 农民 = farmers
2. gōngrén 工人 = workers
3. lǎoshī 老师 = teachers
4. xuésheng 学生 = students

The other students approved farmers and workers but vehemently shot down teachers and students.

That lead the first student to go online and immediately prove herself wrong by reporting that she is now equally sure that they are:

1. nóngmín 农民 = farmers
2. gōngrén 工人 = workers
3. xiǎo zīchǎn jiējí 小资产阶级 = petty bourgeois
4. mínzú zīchǎn jiējí 民族资产阶级 = national bourgeois?? ethnic bourgeois??

She probably found this baidu page, which is a sort of Yahoo-Answers-style forum in which people vote for the answer that seems the best. The above currently has 134 thumbs up (and also seems to agree with the site I borrowed that flag picture from).

I’m not super clear on what those English terms mean, but that site claims they are four social classes. Um, well, I don’t know quite how to say this but, isn’t the idea of different classes um, well, different from the whole idea of the big star? I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying I don’t understand. [insert hands-up, palms-forward emoticon here]

Later, a student staring at his phone proudly announced that he’d found the answer:

1. nóngmín 农民 = farmers
2. gōngrén 工人 = workers
3. shìbīng 士兵 = soldiers
4. zhīshí fènzi 知识分子 = intellectuals
5. qīngnián 青年 = youth

I came home and did a Google search to find where he got his info. Result number one took me to this baidu site , which has the same list.

My suspicions were immediately aroused when I saw a) there are actually five groups, and b) the “Vietnamese Communist party” made an appearance or two. Upon closer reading, I found that despite the the phrase “Chinese flag” in the header of the article, that little biadu post is actually about what each of the five points of the star on the Vietnamese (and maybe Chinese) flag stands for. Apparently my student didn’t realize that and just reported the first list he found that started with farmers and workers.

Everyone agrees on farmers and workers, but the other two stars are still up for grabs. So, I’m going to have a little contest.

The first person to explain what the 4 little stars stand for (and give an authoritative source) wins the prize.

The prize: I’ll cancel that box of moon cakes I’m planning to send you.

Friendly reminder: This is strictly a language-focused, non-political blog. Please avoid comments that will get me banned in China. Thanks!

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Acoustic Puns

These are all based on xiéyīn 谐音 (homonyms) or at least similar-sounding words (see also the New Year’s pun bank).

4 sì 四 ~ sǐ 死 = death

8 bā 八 ~ fā 发 = good luck / get rich (from fācái 发财)

88 bā bā 八八 ~ bye bye*

886 bā bā liù ~ bye bye lo (咯) / bye bye le (了)**

520 wǔ èr líng 五二零 ~ wǒ ài nǐ 我爱你 = I love you

9 roses = eternal love

Explanation: 9 jiǔ 九 ~ jiǔ 久 = long time

*I always wondered why they don’t use 800 bā bǎi, which sounds EXACTLY like “buh bye” if said quickly.  I guess they prefer 2 digits.

**Guangdong Province only?

More Number Idioms

These don’t seem to come from acoustic similarities to other words.

3/8 sān bā 三八 (March 8th) =  Stupid/foolish woman

March 8 is International Women’s Day (Fùnǚjié 妇女节).  I’m not sure where the negative connotations came from.  Maybe it has some connection to bāguà 八卦 (gossip)?

250 èr bǎi wǔ 二百五 = stupid

According to this, it’s because 250 is half a “jīn” 斤 (500 grams), so it means “half brain.”

Bus #11 e.g.  “Take bus #11″ dā shíyì lù chē 搭一路车 = to walk somewhere

The two 1s are supposed to be  your legs.  I’ve also heard this called yāo yāo lù 幺幺路.

211 college/degree = a good college or a degree from a reputable college

I first saw this on some QQ thing where a girl was saying she wanted a boyfriend who had a “211 degree.”  This comes from the “211 Project” (211 gōngchéng 工程).  See Wikipedia for more.

Written

182 ~ 团 = reunion (from 团结 tuán jié)

I’ve seen someone write this out, but I can’t seem to imagine it here on the computer screen.  You write the 1 and 2 somehow to make the two sides of the box and the 8 is supposed to be that 才 filler material somehow.  If anyone has a scan or something of this that might help.  Otherwise, forget this one.

Anyone have any other number slang to add to this list?  It seems like 1314 and 168 are supposed to mean something but I can’t remember what.

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