Mandarin Friday

Me and Mandarin

Mandarin Chinese Sunday

    Hen hao!

Ni hao ma?

    Years back, I saw Shaq respond this very way when asked about Yao Ming.  What a jerk.

Ni hao!

Wow! Steve Benson's calligraphy is much better than mine, unless he cut-&-pasted this. Which, given his artistic talent, I kinda doubt. Anyway, having studied Mandarin Chinese for two years a while back, I always enjoy posting something that has Chinese script in it. . FWIW, that really does say "China", and in Mandarin it's pronounced "Zhong Guo" (high tone, rising tone). And it's one of the few glyphs that I can still recognize.

What's the Chinese word for "flood"?

I don' t know, but I bet it's in there somewhere. . Actually, see that Chinese character second from the bottom in the right-hand column? It's also in the left-hand column (just above the dot), and also in the top horizontal row across the bottom (third from the left). That's "shui" (pronounced "shway"), and is the (Mandarin) Chinese word for water. So I'm betting one of those is in a combination meaning flood.