Articles About the Chinese Language

How to say "kill yourself" in Chinese and use it in conversation.

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The word for "self" (or "yourself", or "myself") is 自己 = zi4 ji3. Like many Chinese words, this is a compound phrase made up of two words that both mean the same exact thing as the compound phrase. (Gee, thanks for being such a simple language, Mandarin.)

So for "kill yourself", you drop the 己 and add the word 沙 = sha1.

Then you get "kill yourself", which is 自沙!! (zi4 sha1.)

Now, assuming you are not depressed or suicidal (if you are, please seek professional counseling and stop reading blogs about Chinese), you might wonder how you'll use this phrase in conversation. Not to worry, here's a tried and true technique:

You may already know the word 得 = de0 = sentence particle used after a verb to show effect/degree or possiblility. That's good. You need it now. The way to think of the meaning is "to the point or degree of".

A usual pattern using 得 is:

[something] 是 [verb] 得 [adjective indicating degree]. For example, if you want to say "dumplings are really delicious" you could say:

饺子是好吃得很.

The words here are

• 饺子 = jiao3zi0 = dumplings
• 是 = shi4 = are
• 好 = hao3 = good, 吃 = chi1 = eat; 好吃 = delicious
• 得 = well... you know... the weird word I just defined above
  
• 很  = hen3 = very/really

In effect the sentence can be thought of as "dumplings are delicious to the degree of really" or "dumplings are delicious to the point of being really delicious". With me? Good.

Now substitute "kill yourself" for "really", and add the word 想 =xiang3 = "think/want" before it, and you get:

饺子是好吃得想 自沙!

This means "dumplings are delicious to the point that I want to kill myself!"

Q.E.D.

I should admit at this point that I have no idea if this is in any way grammatically correct Chinese. But I can all but guarantee that in the right circumstances a Chinese person is likely to understand what you mean and bust up laughing!!

(Note: It is likely your Chinese teacher will not see the humor in this sentence structure.)

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

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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.