Chinese

Китайские игры

graker — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Here is what I found out while studying. Our language, like many others, has the verb «играть» (to play). A universal one: you can play games, or the trumpet, or football, or even play a role. English has to play, French has jouer, German has spielen.

It turns out that Chinese, to make things more interesting, has no such word. I mean, the word 玩 (wán), to play, to have fun, of course exists. But it is good only for games: 玩游戏 (wán yóuxì) is to play games, 玩手机 (wán shǒujī) is to play on the phone (or just to zone out in the phone). Video games work too. But not the trumpet.

It turns out that Chinese has many different words for different kinds of playing, and the right word depends on which part of the body you play with :) Well, that is, on the specific action. And everything covered by a single играть/play/jouer/spielen turns into:

— 打 (dǎ): playing with the hands: basketball, volleyball, tennis, cards. Works for video games too.
— 踢 (tī): playing with the feet, for example kicking a football: 踢足球 (tī zúqiú)
— 下 (xià): moving pieces, for example in Chinese chess: 下象棋 (xià xiàngqí)
— 弹 (tán): playing musical instruments, but, surprise, not all of them, only those you pluck or press. The piano, or the guitar.
— 拉 (lā): playing musical instruments with a bow or by stretching: the violin, the accordion.
— 吹 (chuī): and this one is for wind instruments, the saxophone or the flute: 吹笛子 (chuī dízi). In short, where you have to blow.
— 敲 (qiāo): for percussion. By the way, 打 (dǎ) works here too, it is with the hands after all.
— 演 / 扮演 (yǎn / bànyǎn): playing a role. For example, 扮演警察 (bànyǎn jǐngchá) is to play the role of a policeman.

And in case that does not seem enough, there is also 耍 (shuǎ): in some places it means fooling around, and in other regions people simply say it instead of the general 玩 (wán).

What an interesting language, I will keep studying it. By the way, the other day I got to the verb "can", "be able to", and that certainly made studying out loud at home and in public places spicier :)

Дуовщина

graker — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:15:00 +0000

Duolingo suddenly told me that today is, it turns out, the 7th duoversary of my registration. Seven years ago I came to Duo to learn some German and got hooked for about two years — I don't remember exactly anymore (same as German, ha-ha-ha).

It was interesting and fun, and here's an old post about it that I just dug up. Some of it did stick in my head: I deal with German-language websites almost every day, and I still recognize familiar words.

But at some point I stopped practicing. And recently the interest came back in the form of a desire to learn Chinese. A pity, of course, that such desires show up more often the less time you have to act on them.

But while I still have a little time, I'm holding on and practicing. And the app is good, yes — since it stuck with me for so long.

By the way, if anyone's interested, besides various languages Duo has added chess, math and music theory courses. I already know how to play chess, I've had enough calculus for a lifetime, but music is something I could try.

Задача трёх тел

graker — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:40:00 +0000

To broaden my horizons and out of general interest, I watched «3 Body Problem» the other day. It's a TV series based on the famous book by the Chinese author Liu Cixin, so I watched the Chinese adaptation. Not the Netflix version, which exists too.

At first I wanted to read the book, but I figured it would take very long — so I decided to watch. I didn't notice right away, though, that the Chinese version has not the usual 10–12 episodes, but a whole 30. The book, however, really is very famous — the first in a trilogy. Oh well.

The genre here is science fiction, as scientific as it gets. About scientists. Something strange happens to them at the start of the series. Some kind of dissonance, or, on the contrary, an emotional catharsis. After that, some of them have accidents, while others even declare that their science doesn't exist and kill themselves. It's all mysterious and very suspicious, maybe there's a conspiracy, but whose — reptilians, the Illuminati or hostile Western intelligence services? Unclear.

A scientist and a policeman set out to figure out what happened. And while the scientist cares about physics, metaphysics and the deeper meaning of what's going on, the policeman is more down to earth — whom to catch and punish for the deaths of smart, talented comrades. At least at first.

There's plenty of mystery at the beginning, and the first episodes strongly reminded me of the old Strugatsky brothers' book «Definitely Maybe» («A Billion Years Before the End of the World»), where an insidious universe itself punished scientists so they wouldn't poke their noses where they shouldn't. But the plot here is original, not some clone, so it's not that simple.

There's also a Fringe vibe — that gorgeous sci-fi show from the late 2000s. But that's in moderation too: pleasant, without fawning, let alone copying.

I also liked the opening titles and the cool Chinese song in the background. Very atmospheric. I don't know what the song is about, I probably need a few more years of study to understand something like that. But in the series itself I managed to catch some Chinese words and phrases I already know behind the dubbing. Which is pleasing, of course.

Having watched it, I was a bit surprised that they stretched the story over a whole 30 episodes. Maybe that's typical of their TV production — I don't know. The Netflix version didn't drag it out. Then again, its IMDb rating is currently 7.5 versus 7.6 for the Chinese version. The long version has its advantages too — unhurried pace, atmosphere, contemplation. I'm a bore, I like it.

It's also somewhat confusing in places that some seemingly serious moments are peppered with lulz. Perhaps that's also a tradition of a culture I'm not very familiar with.

But overall it's good, and the take on the global problem it raises is original too. It won't blow your mind, but it's solid and useful for broadening your artistic horizons.

Too bad there's nothing in the news about a Chinese adaptation of the second book in the trilogy, «The Dark Forest». But the second season of the Netflix production seems to be coming out this year. So I guess I'll have to watch the Western version too. And we will, it's interesting after all.

Про омофоны и господина Ши Ши

graker — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 21:55:00 +0000

After the previous post about English idioms I was thinking about homophones in Chinese, which I keep learning. The syllable shì immediately came to mind, which means pretty much anything. Well, for instance,

是世市室事试式示誓柿

all of these sound like shì and can mean to be, world, city, room, matter, to try, type, to show, oath, persimmon. And that's just one tone.

If you add the other tones (shī, shí, shǐ), you get no fewer than 40 different common meanings, all written differently but sounding (within a tone) the same. Even the number 10 — 十 — is shí as well.

That alone blows your mind a little, but while digging into how many different words sound like shi, shy or shii, I found this wonderful poem.

石室詩士施氏, 嗜獅, 誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時, 適十獅適市。
是時, 適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅, 恃矢勢, 使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍, 適石室。
石室濕, 氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭, 氏始試食是十獅。
食時, 始識是十獅, 實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。

It looks like an ordinary Chinese poem that you or I could read over breakfast, if only we knew how :)

That said, this particular poem is easier to read than others. The thing is, it reads as

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

That is, 92 syllables, and all of them sound like "shi" in different tones!

According to one version, it was written in the early 20th century by the linguist Yuen Ren Chao; according to another, it was written by one Hu Mingfu, and the linguist published it and later refined it. They say this humorous little verse is perfectly grammatical, but for obvious reasons pretty much nobody can understand it by ear.

Russian and English sources translate it a bit differently; here's the English version from Wikipedia:

In a stone den was a poet called Shi Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

And on video platforms you'll easily find clips of all sorts of people trying to read this poem aloud.

I'll keep learning this wonderful language!