Linsanity !!!

Everyone has been talking about him and I couldn’t resist either. So here is my official blog post on Jeremy Lin. By now you must have already heard about how lincredible Jeremy Lin is, but did you know that he is lintellectual as well? Yes, and that is exactly the reason why he has been playing so well. Here is a video that I found through a friend of mine:



Jeremy Lin is the first American player of Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA. Just in case you are wondering this is how you say Taiwan in Chinese language:

台湾 (Táiwān): Taiwan


And here are two other names you might be interested in:

香港 (Xiānggǎng): Hong Kong
澳门 (Àomén): Macau

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.

Chinese people love basketball

Posters like one below are found everywhere in Chinese cities. But why do the Chinese people love basketball so much?

The popularity of NBA is believed to have surged in China after Yao Ming was selected as the first overall pick in 2002 NBA draft. It is estimated that his first NBA game attracted more than 200 million viewers in China. In 2008, the number of NBA fans in China was estimated to be around 450 million, and 300 million people were estimated to play basketball in China. 20% of all NBA.com traffic comes from China, and NBA was the 10^th most popular search on Google in China.

So let’s learn how to say the most popular sports in China in Chinese language

篮(lán):basket

球(qiú):ball

篮球(lánqiú): basketball

Here are few other sports involving a球 (qiú):

足球(zúqiú): soccer/football

橄榄球(gǎnlǎnqiú): American football

排球(páiqiú): volleyball

冰球(bīngqiú): ice hockey

乒乓球(pīngpāng qiú): ping pong/table tennis

网球(wǎngqiú): tennis

Feel free to leave a comment and add your favorite sports to this list.

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.