欢迎huān yíng means Hearty Welcome and is a common greeting
Teaching Chinese. Traditional characters for 'what is your name'
2. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
福fú
飞fēi
木mù
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. What is the Chinese for south?
东dōng
英yīng
南nán
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
4. To make a sentence to indicate an action is complete as in 'gone'; 'left'; 'bought' what can you do?
Add 了le after the verb
Add 没méi before the verb
Add 吗mǎ at the end of the sentence
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.
5. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
买国mǎi guó
美国měi guó
没国méi 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. 小 Xiǎo means what in English?
small or young
smile
eight
Division marks around a small object indicating smallness.
7. 心xīn means what in English?
Fewer
Love
Heart
Heart心xīn is used in many words and characters that are to do with emotions.
8. Which word can you use to ask someone to wait
住 zhù
儅 dāng
等 děng
Děng 等 is a useful word to know when traveling; it is often prefixed with please : qing deng - please wait.
13. The possessive 'your' is expressed how in Chinese?
没有 méi yǒu
你的 nǐ de
你㝵 nǐ dé
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. How would you say four tickets in Chinese?
四钟票sì zhōng piào
四张票sì zhāng piào
五张票wǔ zhāng piào
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.
Wanshang refers to evening and can be transliterated as late up.
18. How do you express 1,000,000 in Chinese?
万 wàn
百万 bǎi wàn
十万 shí wàn
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.
