4. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
买国mǎi guó
美国měi guó
华国huá 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 ➚.
5. The possessive 'your' is expressed how in Chinese?
他的 tā de
你㝵 nǐ dé
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.
6. How would you say four tickets in Chinese?
四钟票sì zhōng piào
五张票wǔ zhāng piào
四张票sì 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.
9. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
飞fēi
去qù
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
10. How do you express 1,000,000 in Chinese?
百万 bǎi wàn
十万 shí wàn
万 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.
Wanshang refers to evening and can be transliterated as late up.
15. 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 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.
16. How do you bid someone welcome in Chinese?
朋友péng yǒu
时候shí hòu
欢迎huān yíng
欢迎huān yíng means Hearty Welcome and is a common greeting
Teaching Chinese. Traditional characters for 'what is your name'
17. What is the Chinese for south?
英yīng
西xī
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
18. What is the word for friend in Chinese?
兴友xīng yǒu
平有píng yǒu
朋友péng yǒu
Both of the characters in 朋友péng yǒu indicate friendship.
Starter level quiz about the Chinese language.
