Articles About the Chinese Language

In summer, you need cold angry gas machine.

Sometimes, occasionally, mercifully, something is actually simple in Chinese. This is sort of one of those cases, but sort of not.

The word for air conditioner is 冷气机 [leng3 qi4 ji1]. 冷 means cold, and 气 means air, angry or gas. 机 means machine. So air conditioner is "cold air machine". Makes sense.

Here's the air conditioner from my brother's old apartment in Beijing:

For short, you can call air conditioner 冷气. We don't usually add the 机.

The only mildly confusing thing is that the full word for machine is  机器 [ji1 qi4]. Of course, both of these words mean "machine". So, "machine" in Chinese is really "machine machine".

If you use the common short form of air conditioner, it sounds like "cold machine", but it's really "cold air"!! Rookie mistake to think it'd be as simple as "cold machine". Although, if you pronounce it correctly, no one will know you're using the wrong word.

(Yes, the word for "heater" is 暖气机, or just 暖气 for short. The word 暖, pronounced nuan3, means "warm".)

CHALLENGE: Mandarin spoken by an unsuspecting Beijing local... Part 2: The Answer

This sentence was part of a phone conversation. it's a little hard to translate things out of context, but with some help, here's the sentence.

In English, is means "All day he's had nothing but free time. Quickly beep him for me."

The pinyin is: Ta1 zhe4 yi4 tian1 jing4 xian2 zhe0 mei2 shi4r. Ni3 gan2 jin3 gei3 wo3 hu1 ba.

The characters are: 他这一天净闲着没事儿。你赶紧给我呼吧。

Note that xian2 means "free" as in "free time".

Next challenge coming soon...

Why is it so hard to understand: going to the local police station

It amazes me that after studying Mandarin for 10 years I still can't understand basic sentences spoken at a "normal" rate in "standard" Mandarin by people in Beijing. This recording is a single sentence on repeat:

 

 

This was said by a Beijing cop in my apartment in 2002. He didn't know I was recording him... in fact I didn't even know my mic was on. Sorry!  Anyway, I had no idea what he was saying until I played it back at super slow speed and translated it.

The Chinese is:  Ta1 jiu4 yi3wei2 wo3 gan4ma2 ne? Wo3 shang4 fen1ju2 le... n'n' nar3 you3 gong1 fu40r (time) a?

The translation is: What does he think I was doing? I went to the local police station. How [the f***] do I have time?

Anyone who can understand this without the pinyin and translation is a pretty hardcore Mandarin speaker. This aint no textbook Chinese.