Laowai Chinese 老外中文

I was at a wedding recently, and there were little cards at the center of each table that showed who was supposed to sit there. The Chinese friend I was sitting with found his name and then pointed to the characters “(伉俪)” written underneath. He somehow knew it was supposed to be pronounced “kànglì” but […]

The other day in my English Corner (yīngyǔ jiǎo 英语角, basically a club for speaking English), we were talking about publicity stunts and someone used a little electronic dictionary to translate “stunt” as: 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” […]

Welcome to part 3 in a series about difficult Chinese words to translate into English. Today’s contestant: 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 […]

Partially inspired by the hoopla about zhēteng 折腾, this is first in a new series (of at least one post) about words that are difficult to translate into English. Today’s contestant: shuǎlài 耍赖 (Click icons to look it up in different online dictionaries.) Can anyone give a better definition and preferably an example situation (not […]

This is part xià 下 of a two-part series about common things that are uncommonly difficult for the Chinese in their own language. In part one, we talked about talking. Now on to writing. The following is inspired by (read: directly stolen from) David Moser’s article “The ‘Invisible’ Writing on the Wall.” How Do You […]

Xīnnián hǎo 新年好 everyone. Happy year of the Niu (I guess “Ox” is the best-sounding translation). As you’re making your bàinián 拜年 tour, and you find yourself face to face with countless relatives of your Chinese friends, perhaps you’ve gotten tired of the same old conversation topics you’re ready to branch out. Well you’re in […]