Heart心xīn is used in many words and characters that have to do with emotions.
2. To make a sentence to indicate an action is complete as in 'gone'; 'left'; 'bought' what can you do?
Add 了le before the verb
Add 吗mǎ at the end of the sentence
Add 了le after 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.
3. 小 Xiǎo means what in English?
small or young
smile
child
Division marks around a small object indicating smallness.
4. How do you bid someone welcome in Chinese?
再见zài jiàn
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'
5. 三月八日sān yuè bā rì is how you would write which date?
8th March
9th July
3rd August
Dates in Chinese are easy, you just count the number of days and months.
6. What is the Chinese word for walk?
是shì
走zǒu
星xīng
走zǒu is the character for walk, move, run or hasten.
Wanshang refers to evening and can be transliterated as late up.
8. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
中国zhōng guó
美国měi guó
英国yīng 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 ➚.
9. Yesterday is what in Chinese
来年 lái nián
去年 qù nián
昨天 zuó tiān
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
10. How would you say four tickets in Chinese?
四张票sì zhāng piào
五张票wǔ zhāng piào
四朝sì zhāo
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.
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.
18. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
福fú
木mù
去qù
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
19. Which word can you use to ask someone to wait
行 xíng
等 děng
住 zhù
Děng 等 is a useful word to know when traveling; it is often prefixed with please : qing deng - please wait.
Starter level quiz about the Chinese language.
