Do you want to buy or sell?

The words for buy and sell have the same pronunciation in Chinese language. Even the characters look similar.

买 (mǎi): buy

卖 (mài): sell

Thank god the tones are different. So make sure you get the tones right.

If you want to 买 (mǎi) then why not learn some of the words below?

买东西 (mǎi dōngxi): to go shopping

购物中心 (gòuwù zhōngxīn): shopping center

商店 (shāngdiàn): shop/store

Whenever I went shopping in China, one phrase I used a lot was

太贵了 (tài guì le): too expensive

贵 (guì): expensive

Make sure you use it a lot too and always ask for a discount

打折 (dǎzhé): to give a discount

便宜一点儿 (piányi yīdiǎn er): a bit cheaper

便宜 (piányi): cheap

免费 (miǎnfèi): free

How are words formed in Chinese language?

Some of my friends who don’t speak Chinese find it really hard to understand how are the words formed in Chinese language. Unlike English, Chinese language doesn’t have letters which can be combined to form words. So does that mean that there is a unique character for every single word in Chinese language? If you have been following this blog, by now you should have figured out that’s not the case.

We have already learned that the same character, with the same pronunciation and tone, can have more than one meaning depending on the context and use. Please review the post Three uses of 想 (xiǎng). So yes, there isn’t a unique character for every single word in Chinese language.

But today we are going to look at how a Chinese character can be combined with other characters to form new words. Let’s use a character we recently learned, 手 (shǒu), as our example.

手 (shǒu): hand

Now let’s combine it with other characters:

手表(shǒubiǎo): wristwatch

手册(shǒucè): handbook; manual

手机(shǒujī): cell phone

手绢(shǒujuàn): handkerchief

手铐(shǒukào): handcuffs

手球(shǒuqiú): handball

手套(shǒutào): gloves

I hope this gives you some idea of how some of the Chinese words are formed. Please check out The 好 (hǎo) words of Chinese language if you are looking for another similar post.

The king of all Tongue Twisters

Maybe you didn’t believe me when I said that tones are important in Chinese language, so I have this tongue twister for you. I think this is the king of all tongue twisters.

Lion-eating poet in the stone den was written by Zhao Yua Ren to highlight the importance of Chinese characters. He wrote this 93 words long story, with all the words pronounced shi (in various tones), to prove that replacing Chinese characters with a phonetic script wouldn’t make sense. While this essay confirms the importance of characters in written Chinese, it also confirms the importance of tones in spoken Chinese.

施氏食狮史	Shī shì shí shī shǐ
石室诗士施氏	Shíshì shī shì shī shì,
嗜狮, 誓食十狮	Shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
氏时时适市视狮	Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
十时, 适十狮适市	Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
是时, 适施氏适是市	Shì shí, shì shī shì shì shì shì.
氏视是十狮, 恃矢势,	Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì,
使是十狮逝世	Shíshì shī shì shī shì,
氏拾是十狮尸, 适石室	Shì shi shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
石室湿, 氏使侍拭石室	Shíshì shī, shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
石室拭, 氏始试食十狮尸	Shíshì shì, shì shǐ shì shí shí shī shī.
食时, 始识十狮尸,	Shí shí, shǐ shi shí shī shī,
实十石狮尸	Shí shí shíshī shī.
试释是事	Shì shì shì shì.

And here is the English translation

Lion-eating Poet

A poet named Shi who lived in a stone den was fond of lions and swore that he would eat ten lions. He constantly went to the market to look for ten lions. One day at ten o’clock, Shi went to the market and saw ten lions there. Using his arrows he killed the ten lions, and carried the dead lions back to his stone den. The stone den was damp, so Shi ordered his servants to wipe the stone den. When he tried to eat the ten lions, he realized that they were actually made of stones and tried to get rid of them.

Just in case you are wondering how this story sounds, here is a video

I hope that I have convinced you now. Can you imagine getting the tones wrong in the above story?

Chinese tongue twister

Like every other language, Chinese has tongue twisters too. But what makes Chinese tongue twisters more challenging is that you don’t have to worry only about pronunciation but also tones. Below is a good example.

Chinese	Pinyin	English
四是四	sì shì sì	4 is 4
十是十	shí shì shí	10 is 10
十四是十四	shí sì shì shí sì	14 is 14
四十是四十	sì shí shì sì shí	40 is 40
四十四是四十四	sì shí sì shì sì shí sì	44 is 44
四十四只石狮子是死的	sì shí sì zhǐ shí shīzi shì sǐ de	44 stone lions are dead

This is usually the first tongue twister taught in Chinese classrooms. It was definitely the first for me. I struggle with s and sh sounds and this tongue twister was a nightmare for me. Let me know how you find it.

And do you think you can do better than Jackie Chan?