Chinese Speaking Fans

Chen Yu Luo Yan (沉鱼落雁) is a famous Chinese idiom. 沉鱼落雁 (chén yú luò yàn): Makes the fish sink and wild geese fall The idiom describes the magical beauty of women. In particular, the idiom is related to Xi Shi (西施), and Wang Zhaojun (王昭君), two of The Four Beauties of ancient China (四大美女). Chen …

波蘭 (Traditional Chin. characters) / 波兰 (Simplified Chin. characters) bōlán / bolan is a syllable by syllable rendition of “Poland”. Nobody pays attention to the meaning of the individual characters: they are commonly used to stand for foreign syllables. Thus, 斯里蘭卡 Sīlǐlánkǎ / Syliilankaa stands for Sri Lanka, and 約翰·蘭波 Yuēhàn·Lán bō = John Rambo. (1) The “b” in bō / …

Here are two screenshots of 奶奶 and 姥姥 from the dictionary, Dictionary of Modern Chinese, or 现代汉语词典 in Chinese, published by the Commercial Press, or 商务印书馆 in Chinese. As you can see, 奶奶 could mean the paternal grandmother. It could also refer to elder women whose ages could be those of the grandmothers. In the …

“1“ being pronounced as “yao” (幺) is a military number variant. It became popular and used by civilians. It is similar to the military alphabet for English and other languages and served a similar function. when using military codes, people often choose a word to pronounce a letter, so there’s no misunderstanding when the connection …

When you chat with your Chinese friends on Wechat, after he/she tells a joke or throws a trendy meme into the chats, how do you respond in Chinese? “lol”? Chinese don’t do the abbreviation of the phrase “laugh out loud”, instead, they use words that emulate the sound. “哈哈 haha” is the Chinese corresponding word …