2. The United States of America is called what in Chinese?
美国měi guó
华国huá 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 ➚.
3. 晚上wǎn shàng refers to which time of day?
Afternoon
Evening
Day break
Wanshang refers to evening and can be transliterated as late up.
4. Which character for good fortune is widely seen at Chinese New Year?
福fú
孚fú
去qù
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
5. How would you say four tickets in Chinese?
四朝sì zhāo
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.
11. The possessive 'your' is expressed how in Chinese?
你的 nǐ de
没有 méi yǒu
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.
12. 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 吗mǎ at the end of the sentence
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.
13. What is the Chinese for south?
东dōng
北běi
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
14. What is the Chinese word for walk?
走zǒu
昨zuó
星xīng
走zǒu is the character for walk, move, run or hasten.
18. 三月八日sān yuè bā rì is how you would write which date?
8th August
3rd March
8th March
Dates in Chinese are easy, you just count the number of days and months.
19. How do you express 1,000,000 in Chinese?
百万 bǎi wàn
千千 qiān qiān
万百 wàn bǎi
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.
