1. 三月八日sān yuè bā rì is how you would write which date?
8th March
3rd March
9th July
Dates in Chinese are easy, you just count the number of days and months.
2. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
美国měi guó
没国méi 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 ➚.
3. What is the Chinese for south?
英yīng
南nán
东dōng
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. 心xīn means what in English?
Water
Love
Heart
Heart心xīn is used in many words and characters that have to do with emotions.
5. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
木mù
孚fú
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
6. How would you say four tickets in Chinese?
四张票sì zhāng piào
四朝sì zhāo
四钟票sì zhōng 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.
10. To make a sentence to indicate an action is complete as in 'gone'; 'left'; 'bought' what can you do?
Add 没méi before the verb
Add 了le after 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.
11. Which word can you use to ask someone to wait
等 děng
住 zhù
冬 dōng
Děng 等 is a useful word to know when traveling; it is often prefixed with please : qing deng - please wait.
12. The possessive 'your' is expressed how in Chinese?
他的 tā de
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.
13. 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.
Starter level quiz about the Chinese language.
