Interesting Words in Chinese

Posted by Metabetable at 12/28/2007 8:07 PM and is filed under Studying Chinese
Every chapter of my Chinese book I am introduced to new words that have interesting literal translations into English.   Although I think Chinese is a very difficult language to learn because of its tonal nature and crazy writing system, in some ways I think Chinese is a more logical language than English.  Many words are simply combinations of characters that describe the word.

Here are some of my favorite examples of what I'm talking about:
电脑     
Chinese Pronunciation: dian nao
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Electric brain
English meaning: Computer

电影
Chinese pronunciation: dian ying
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Electric shadow
English meaning: Film

山水
Chinese pronunciation: shan shui
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Mountain water
English meaning: Landscape

风水
Chinese pronunciation: feng shui
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Wind water
English meaning: Geomancy (fengshui)

龙头
Chinese pronunciation: long tou
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Dragon head
English meaning: Faucet

老外
Chinese pronunciation: lao wai
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Old outside
English meaning: Derogatory name for foreigners

同意
Chinese pronunciation: tong yi
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Together meaning
English meaning: To agree

手机
Chinese pronunciation: shou ji
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Hand machine
English meaning: Cellular phone

收音机
Chinese pronunciation: shou yin ji
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Receive noise machine
English meaning: Radio

危机
Chinese pronunciation: wei ji
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Dangerous opportunity
English meaning: Crisis

复活节
Chinese pronunciation: fu huo jie
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Again life festival
English meaning: Easter

美国
Chinese pronunciation: mei guo
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Beautiful country
English meaning: United States of America

英国
Chinese pronunciation: ying guo
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Brave country
English meaning: England

法国
Chinese pronunciation: fa guo
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Legal country
English meaning: France

德国
Chinese pronunciation: de guo
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Moral country
English meaning: Germany

日本
Chinese pronunciation: ri ben
Literal Translation from Chinese to English: Sun root
English meaning: Japan

Hopefully these examples give you an understanding of what I mean about Chinese being more "logical".  I think that there is a lot of room for disagreement on this point, but I find these words pretty cool nonetheless.

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  • 12/29/2007 12:51 AM Taylor O wrote:
    Really interesting entry I saw on this 'electric brain.'

    Moral country for Germany, eh? I'm guessing a Jew was not the translator for that one.
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  • 12/29/2007 4:09 AM Arlight wrote:
    No, you have some of it wrong. Sure, Mei Guo means Beautiful Country, but Ying Guo, Fa Guo, and De guo, are not derived from the reasons you listed. E.G Fa Guo, as in Fa Lan Ci, the Chinese pronunciation of France; Ying Ge Lan, Ying Guo, England; De Guo, Deutsch, Germany.

    Words like computer (not sure about this one), radio, and film are derived from Japanese (the reason being Japan opened up to the West before China did), which were derived from combinations of Kanji characters (I think). Also, the proper term for computer is 计算机, a machine that does computation, i.e a computer! WOW. Okay, we not talking about the person who is a computer, i.e some one before the invention of electronic computers that did repetitive computations for mathematicians.
    Reply to this
    1. 12/29/2007 11:18 AM Metabetable wrote:
      I was actually going to put a disclaimer about the countries, but decided not to.  Chinese people have told me before that thinking of the countries as the way I have just listed them is not exactly correct.  They emphasized that the countries names were simply chosen to sound like the countries do in other languages, ie.

      - Fa - France
      - Ying - English
      - Mei - America
      - De - Deutsch

      So I admit that saying these America mean "beautiful country" is a bit of a stretch.  But if you look up the words - fa, ying, mei, de - in a Chinese/English dictionary, the definitions will be what I put in my blog post.

      As far as words like computer, I've never heard

      计算机

      but I have heard

      电脑     

      My understanding of Chinese is only superficial, these are just the words I've learned so far in studying that strike me as noteworthy.

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  • 1/12/2008 12:30 PM zzdkfjdi wrote:
    jppaphua http://ynzerciy.com ggkspxga qhfbawai ixkjcypo">http://rjobelkw.com">ixkjcypo [URL=http://ueuworsh.com]wcknvatf[/URL]
    Reply to this
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