2. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
去qù
飞fēi
福fú
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
3. 晚上wǎn shàng refers to which time of day?
Day break
Evening
Night
Wanshang refers to evening and can be transliterated as late up.
4. What is the Chinese for south?
东dōng
南nán
西xī
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
5. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
美国měi guó
英国yīng guó
买国mǎi 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 ➚.
6. How would you say the year 2008 in Chinese?
二零零八年 èr líng líng bā nián
两零八年 liǎng líng bā nián
两零零八年 liǎng líng líng bā nián
The 'zero' is not repeated so it is a bit like saying two thousand and eight.
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.
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
13. The possessive 'your' is expressed how in Chinese?
的你 de nǐ
他的 tā de
你的 nǐ 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.
14. To make a sentence to indicate an action is complete as in 'gone'; 'left'; 'bought' what can you do?
Add 吗mǎ at the end of the sentence
Add 没méi before the verb
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.
15. How do you express 1,000,000 in Chinese?
十万 shí wàn
百万 bǎi wàn
双 shuāng
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.
