Chinese nicknames of NBA players

I have already talked about how much the Chinese people love basketball. Yao Ming has to be the most popular NBA player in China, but that doesn’t mean that other NBA players are not popular there. In 2009/10 season, Kobe Bryant had the most popular jersey in China. Here are the top five:

Kobe Bryant - Lakers

LeBron James – Cavaliers (then)/Heat (now)

Dwight Howard - Magic

Kevin Garnett - Celtics

Derrick Rose - Bulls

You must have already gotten yourself a Chinese name by now. Just so that these NBA players do not fall behind, Chinese people have given nicknames to their favorite NBA players. Here are few of them:

Kobe Bryant: 小飞侠 (Xiǎo fēi xiá): Little Flying Warrior

LeBron James: 小皇帝 (Xiǎo huángdì): Little Emperor

Dirk Nowitzki: 德国战车 (Déguó zhàn chē): German Racecar

Carmelo Anthony: 甜瓜 (Tiánguā): Sweet Melon

Richard Hamilton: 面具人 (Miànjù rén): Man in the Mask

Shaquille O’Neal: 俠客 (Xiákè): Warrior

Dwyane Wade: 闪电侠 (Shǎndiàn xiá): The Flash

Tim Duncan: 石佛 (Shí fú): Stone Buddha

Check the NBA website for the Chinese nicknames of more NBA players.

As tall as Yao Ming

My Chinese teachers in China used the following examples all the time:

姚明很高 (Yáo Míng hěn gāo): Yao Ming is tall

姚明是高高的(Yáo Míng shì gāo gāo de): Yao Ming is very tall

像姚明一样高(xiàng Yáo Míng yīyàng gāo): …as tall as Yao Ming…

And my favorite response was:

我比姚明高(wǒ bǐ Yáo Míng gāo): I am taller than Yao Ming

Yes, the Chinese people love their Yao Ming. For those of you who don’t know, Yao Ming is a 7 feet 6 inch basketball player from China. His Wikipedia page says that he is currently the tallest player in NBA, and he has also been the richest celebrity in China for six straight years. Being a basketball star in basketball-crazy China has made Yao Ming, in my opinion, the most well known Chinese athlete in China. Maybe that is why you see Yao Ming posters all over China and Yao Ming examples all over Chinese classrooms.

By talking about how tall Yao Ming is, we just looked at different ways of making comparisons in Chinese language. The following are the sentence structures:

A 比 B 高 (A bǐ B gāo): A is taller than B

A 是最高的 (A shì zuì gāo de): A is the tallest

像A 一样高 (xiàng A yīyàng gāo): ...as tall as A…

And by now you should know that 高 (gāo) means tall.