2. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
英国yīng guó
美国měi guó
中国zhōng guó
美měi means beautiful on its own, so with 国guó it means beautiful country. It was chosen as a rough transliteration of America.
Deng Xiaoping during Sino-American signing ceremony, 1st Jan 1979.
Image available under a Creative Commons license ➚.
3. How do you bid someone welcome in Chinese?
高兴gāo xīng
欢迎huān yíng
先生xiān shēng
欢迎huān yíng means Hearty Welcome and is a common greeting
Teaching Chinese. Traditional characters for 'what is your name'
4. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
福fú
飞fēi
夫fū
The character for good fortune 福fú has an interesting derivation. It is widely seen on Chinese gifts. Just to add to confusion it is often shown ?upside down?
Traditional lion dance near a temple
5. The possessive 'your' is expressed how in Chinese?
没有 méi yǒu
你的 nǐ de
他的 tā de
The possessive ' 的 de' is a very common character in Chinese, it can be used with any noun to make someone or something possess it.
6. Yesterday is what in Chinese
昨天 zuó tiān
上月 shàng yuè
去年 qù nián
昨 zuó on its own can mean yesterday. 天 tiān 'heaven' is day.
Wall and Moat with corner guard post defend the Forbidden City, Beijing
7. What is the Chinese word for walk?
支zhī
昨zuó
走zǒu
走zǒu is the character for walk, move, run or hasten.
8. To make a sentence to indicate an action is complete as in 'gone'; 'left'; 'bought' what can you do?
Add 么me after the the verb
Add 了le after the verb
Add 没méi before the verb
Changing the tense of a verb is easy in Chinese you do not have to learn declension or lots of new characters. Adding 了le to 买mǎi buy turns it into 买了mǎi le bought.
9. What is the Chinese word for green?
渔yú
白bái
绿lǜ
Both 绿lǜ and 红hóng contain the radical for silk in them, indicating the use of dyes to color cloth.
You need to include a measure word in Chinese; you can not say just four tickets, you need to add the measure word for things that are flat 四票sì piào between the number and the noun.
You will find south in a number of province names including Henan; Hunan; Yunnan and in the city of Nanjing (southern capital).
Division of a traditional Feng Shui compass
12. How do you express 1,000,000 in Chinese?
千千 qiān qiān
百万 bǎi wàn
万百 wàn bǎi
In China, the number 10,000 was considered innumerable and is used to express 'countless' and 'myriad'. Numbers greater than 10,000 are expressed as multiples of 10,000 up to 100,000,000 which would be 10,000x10,000 and is a new character 亿 yì.
Starter level quiz about the Chinese language.
