Word for the Travel Wise (01/31/06)

As we conclude a month full of new foreign words it was only a matter of time before I would have to re-visit them and that time is now. I’m sure many of you are just as bummed and excited as I am about this small piece of news. Bummed because you read each word every day waiting to see how long it would take to start repeating and excited because now you’ll be able to build a decent (handful) vocabulary set from your lingo of choice. With the kickoff of New Year’s celebrations over the past weekend it was only natural to expand our Chinese.

Today’s word is a Mandarin phrase used in China:

guo nian hao – Happy New Year!

Mandarin is the most widely spoken of the Chinese language and can be a bit difficult to learn, but there are many sites online that can help get you started. The best will probably cost a small amount of money and the links are many so for sources pointing to additional sources check out About and Mandarin Tools. Mandarin tools is good if you’d like to add pinyin tools and other Chinese text files to your computer. Zap Chinese is free and has small dictionaries of common words with audio. Mei Wah is an awesome and funny site on becoming more aware as an eater and learning Chinese by way of menus and restaurant signs. In addition to these past recommendations check out the Hong Kong Language Learning Center (HKLLC) for study abroad in Hong Kong or Beijing. Qi Journal has a section dedicated to Chinese culture and language study.

Past Mandarin words: zhu ni hao yun.