Thread: Chinese Word

Hello everyone ,I come here by chance and glad to find so many people have interest in Chinese.

I will introduce some knowledge about Chinese language periodically from now on.


俄 罗 斯 - e luo si - Russia
莫 斯 科 - mo si ke - Moscow
圣 彼 得 堡 - sheng bi de bao - St.Petersburg
中 国 - zhong guo - China
上 海 - shang hai -Shanghai

Who are you, good sir?

glad to meet you ,russian friend, I am a Chinese citizen have interest in Russia.

沃 罗 涅 日 - wo luo nie ri - Voronezh

伏 尔 加 河 - fu er jia he -Volga

第 聂 伯 河 - di nie bo he - Dnieper

顿 河 - dun he - Don

河（pronunciation "he"）means “river”

Hello, seawind!

I find in dictionary that Russia is 俄 国 .
Do you use both 俄 罗 斯 and 俄 国 and what is the difference?

Also I'm interested what it means in Chinese because every now and then I hear that in Chinese Russia means 'hungry(foodless) land'

I hear that in Chinese Russia means 'hungry(foodless) land'

Chinese have a lot of puns like that because there are so many words in their language that are pronounced the same. In this case they're referring to the word 饿.

I may be incorrect but:

俄 罗 斯

- phonetic "Russia", probably used in more formal situations

俄 国

- "Russian land", used in more informal situations

I'm not sure what it means in Chinese either; sometimes they pick the characters to have a nice meaning but in this case I think they just threw any old character in there

BTW, are there a lot of Russians studying Chinese? I've run into no less than three of them just on this board...

Originally Posted by Pravit

BTW, are there a lot of Russians studying Chinese? I've run into no less than three of them just on this board...

You can find a lot more here
http://polusharie.com/

Books, dictionaries etc:
http://www.multikulti.ru/Chinese/

N, glad to meet you too.

国 means "country", Chinese is a kind of monosyllabic language,and the name of european county is always a polysyllabic word, so we habit to adopt the first syllable of the country name and plus "国(guo)" after it to express that conutry.

For example, French,we called it "法 兰 西 (fa lan xi)" or "法 国 (fa guo)" at the same time.

So, in general ,俄国 and 俄罗斯 have no essentially difference.

Who told you that in Chinese Russia means 'hungry(foodless) land'? Hungry in Chinese is "饿"， "俄" in Chinese is a echoism word or means "stately" in some case.

I have added http://polusharie.com/ in my favorite folder days ago

Originally Posted by seawind

Who told you that in Chinese Russia means 'hungry(foodless) land'?

I've used google and found a source. It's a Zbignev Brzezinski's book "The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives"

He is a famous American politician of Polish origin and notorious for his Russophobia. His book had been translated in Russian and become very well known. So I heard about "hungry land" even on TV.

Here is quote from his book (Russian edition):
"Китайцы, для которых слово "Россия" означало "голодная земля",
выказывали еще более открытое презрение."
http://lib.ru/POLITOLOG/AMERICA/bzhezinskij.txt

In English:
"The Chinese, for whom the word "Russia" means "the hungry land," were even more openly contemptuous."
http://book-case.kroupnov.ru/pages/libr ... part_1.htm


Thank you for the explanation!

Oh...I have read the Chinese version of "The Grand Chessboard" - 大棋局 six years ago , the book full of bias and lie , Brzezinski is a politician loyal to USA benefit,not a linguist familiar with Chinese.In fact, I think 俄国＝"hungry land" is a provocative between China and CCCP by US government during cold war period.

We Chinese always use nice meaning word as other country's name,for example, America-美国(美means beautiful),French-法国(法 means law),English-英国(英 means flower,hero),Germany-德国(德means virtue),now you see, it's no reason we Chinese should only call Russia as a "hungry land", it's absurdity.

I read him many years ago too and I got the same impression - BS and lie. Nothing worth to remember and I forgot it. His book freely lies on shelves in bookstores and seems many our politicians and journalists had read it. That's why occasionally someone parrots this nonsense.
I could guess it myself had I used google before and found out the source of this 'knowledge'.


再见!

I learn not more than 50 words yet. I just started last week.

see you later.



一 － yi1 －one
二 － er4 －two
三 － san3 －three
四 － si4 －four
五 － wu3 －five
六 － liu4 －six
七 － qi1 －seven
八 － ba1 －eight
九 － jiu3 －nine
十 － shi2 －ten

我 - wo3 - I
你 - ni3 - you
他 - ta1 - he
她 - ta1 - she
它 - ta1 - it

我的 - wo3 de - my
你的 - ni3 de - your
他的 - ta1 de - his
她的 - ta1 de - her

你好 - ni3 hao3 - hello
你叫什么名字？ - ni3 jiao4 shen2 me ming2 zi4 - what's your name?

ni3 jiao4 shen2 me ming2 zi4
So you say like "you called what name"? It's interesting.

Ok, this is my first text in Chinies:
Ni3 hao3! Wo3 shi e luo si ren. Wo3 jiao4 JJ (Jin Zhiao?). Ni3 hao3 ma? Wo3 shi gong1cheng2shi1 he2 zai4 gong1chang3 li gong1zuo4. Seawind, ni3 gong1zuo4 huo4zhe3 xue2xi2 ma?

Originally Posted by JJ

ni3 jiao4 shen2 me ming2 zi4
So you say like "you called what name"? It's interesting.

Ok, this is my first text in Chinies:
Ni3 hao3! Wo3 shi e luo si ren. Wo3 jiao4 JJ (Jin Zhiao?). Ni3 hao3 ma? Wo3 shi gong1cheng2shi1 he2 zai4 gong1chang3 li gong1zuo4. Seawind, ni3 gong1zuo4 huo4zhe3 xue2xi2 ma?

I'm no Chinese expert but I think it's pretty good The only thing I noticed was the "ma" on the end of your last sentence, this is used only for yes/no type questions.

Originally Posted by JJ

ni3 jiao4 shen2 me ming2 zi4
So you say like "you called what name"? It's interesting.

Ok, this is my first text in Chinies:
Ni3 hao3! Wo3 shi e luo si ren. Wo3 jiao4 JJ (Jin Zhiao?). Ni3 hao3 ma? Wo3 shi gong1cheng2shi1 he2 zai4 gong1chang3 li gong1zuo4. Seawind, ni3 gong1zuo4 huo4zhe3 xue2xi2 ma?

JJ,your Chinese is very good.

Now I try to translate your pinyin into character:

你好！我是俄罗斯人。我叫JJ(jin zhiao- zhiao is not pinyin word).你好吗？我是工程师和在工厂里工作(Chinese habit to use two short sentences to express two attributes when they can make sentence independently,so you should say "我是工程师,我在工厂里工作(Wo3 shi gong1cheng2shi1，Wo3 zai4 gong1chang3 li3 gong1zuo4)")。Seawind,你工作或者学习吗？("或者" and "还是" are all equal to "or" in English,but "或者" is seldom used in question.So you should say "你是职员还是学生呢？(ni3 shi4 zhi2 yuan2 hai2 shi4 xue2 sheng1 ne ? )" to express "Are you employee or student? " .)

JJ,glad to meet you ,I have a engineer title too.

星期一 xingqiyi monday
星期二 xingqier tuesday
星期三 xingqsan wednesday
星期四 xingqisi thursday
星期五 xingqiwu friday
星期六 xingqiliu saturday
星期天 xingqitian sunday

头 - tou2 - head
脸 - lian3 - face
脖子 - bo2zi1 - neck
肩膀 - jian1bang3 - shoulder
手 - shou3 - hand
胳膊 - ge1bo - arm
腿 - tui3 - leg
脚 - jiao3 -feet