Is America beautiful?

Few posts ago, I asked “Why is America called美国 (Měi Guó)?” Just in case you already forgot, 美国 (Měi Guó) translates to beautiful country.

美(Měi): beautiful

国(Guó): state

Well, it could just be because the Chinese people think that America is beautiful. No matter how the Sino-US relations maybe, I have generally found a fondness for America among the Chinese people. I don’t really know why America was named 美国 (Měi Guó), but I think the explanation given by a friend of mine is worth sharing.

美(Měi) from 美国 (Měi Guó) sounds very similar to the second syllable in America. And since 美 (Měi) has a good meaning as well, the Chinese people decided to name America as 美国 (Měi Guó). And she gave me few other examples too, which really convinced me:

德国(Dé Guó): Deutschland (Germany)

德(Dé): virtue, morals

英国(Yīng Guó): England

英(Yīng): brave

法国(Fǎ Guó): France

法(Fǎ): law

The Chinese sounds

Many people struggle with Chinese pronunciation, and looking at the Chinese characters doesn’t really help much. Thank god we have pinyin. Pinyin is an officially adopted system of writing Chinese using the Latin alphabet. It was developed to help people with the accurate pronunciation of Chinese words. So far in my posts, I have included pinyin after each Chinese character to give everyone an idea of how those characters are pronounced. While most of the pinyin alphabets are pronounced like they would be in English, there are some notable exceptions:

C is pronounced TS, example: Cong

Q is pronounced CH, example: Qi

Z is pronounced DS, example: Zun

X is pronounced SH, example: Xi’an

U is pronounced OO, example: Hu

UI is pronounced AY, example: Sui

OU is pronounced OH, example: Zhou

ZH is pronounced JH, example: Zhou

To look at more examples and listen to audio clips, visit the National Gallery of Art website.

And here is a video that might help

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.

The four tones of Chinese

Many of you have wanted to know more about the tones, and seems like some of you have a wrong understanding of what the tones are. A friend of mine asked me if tones in Chinese were like English words with multiple pronunciations and meanings. He used the word polish as his example.

pol·ish [pol-ish]: to make smooth and glossy, especially by rubbing or friction

Po·lish [poh-lish]: of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Poland, its inhabitants, or their language

When said differently the word polish can mean two completely different things. While I like his analogy, the Chinese tones are not exactly the same. So I thought it will be a good idea to write one more post on the tones. Let’s look at a different example this time.

1^st tone (flat): 低 (dī): low

2^nd tone (rising): 笛 (dí): flute

3^rd tone (falling & rising): 底 (dǐ): bottom

4^th tone (falling): 地 (dì): land

Maybe this video will help

The Middle Kingdom

China is called 中国 (zhōngguó) in Chinese.

中(zhōng): middle

国 (guó): state

中国 (zhōngguó): Middle Kingdom

Maybe the map below will help us explain why China is called the Middle Kingdom.

Here is an excerpt from the article where I found the above map:

“The map is similar to many present-day Chinese world maps in that it positions at the centre of the map China (which used self-confidently to refer to itself as the “Middle Kingdom”), and not Europe.”

One theory, among few others, says that China is called the Middle Kingdom because its rulers believed that China is in the center of the world as shown in the map above.

But why is the United States called 美国 (měiguó)?

美(měi): beautiful

国(guó): state