1. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
木mù
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
2. How do you bid someone welcome in Chinese?
先生xiān shēng
欢迎huān yíng
高兴gāo xīng
欢迎huān yíng means Hearty Welcome and is a common greeting
Teaching Chinese. Traditional characters for 'what is your name'
3. Which word can you use to ask someone to wait
等 děng
儅 dāng
行 xíng
Děng 等 is a useful word to know when traveling; it is often prefixed with please : qing deng - please wait.
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.
Division marks around a small object indicating smallness.
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.
15. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
没国méi 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 ➚.
16. 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
Prefix the sentence with 请qǐng
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.
17. What is the Chinese word for walk?
昨zuó
走zǒu
星xīng
走zǒu is the character for walk, move, run or hasten.