Engrish

Occassionally, you will see these funny signs in China. I think they are machine translated. You may find these dishes funny or horrid…

The week beats the fish soup – yummy! Please have a “Sand”.

I would like a cold cow of the west please.

The carbon buuurns, oh please help me.

Happiness – 喜

This week we are learning the verb “to like”. The Chinese word for “to like” is actually a phrase consists of two characters.: “happiness” 喜+ “joy” 欢. Although for such a simple English word, the Chinese phrase seems to be quite complicated to write, both characters are indispensable for any Chinese person.

So, the bad news is – we have to learn it and learn it quick because this is an especially useful word.

In particular, we want to focus on the word “happiness”. Since this is a key word in the Chinese existence. When we get married, the one single word to signify such event, such moment is this word. Here is a modern couple’s wedding invitation celebrating their marriage in Shanghai. You can see the creative use of the ”happiness” word.