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Learn Chinese travel phrases with ChineseClass101.com! A little Chinese can go such a long way! Whether you’re traveling, visiting, or sightseeing, ChineseClass101.com has all the essential travel phrases just for you! In this lesson, we cover another high frequency Chinese phrase sure to be of use on your trip, travels, or vacation to China.

Check out this Chinese lesson to learn more about Vegetarian dishes in China. And be sure to stop by ChineseClass101.com to pick up more great Chinese lessons and learning resources before setting out on your trip to China!



This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Survival Phrases . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

25 Responses to “Survival Phrases #45 - I Am a Vegetarian”

ChineseClass101.com says:

Do you think China has a good Vegetarian selection?

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蓝大卫 says:

How would you translate this into Chinese? I once saw it on a T-shirt at the Phoenix airport.

“I love animals. They taste good。”

Would “我很喜欢动物们。 它们好吃。” carry the essential humor of the English
translation?

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

哈哈, interesting. I would go “我喜欢动物。动物好吃。”

1)“动物”is a collective noun that does not need a “们” to indicate plurality, like “食物”“植物”。
2)In Chinese, we tend not to use a pronoun to replace a noun, instead we repeat it. For example, “我喜欢苹果,苹果好吃” sounds more natural than “我喜欢苹果,它好吃” to me.
3)Yes. In Chinese it is funny too!

I don’t know if I made myself clear. But if you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to ask:)

-LanZi

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zhouli says:

@蓝大卫,
do you really think in this way? ok, if you come to china, I will definitely keep my kitten away from you… :mrgreen:

about 们men, usually we take it as the plural marker of people, like 我们(wǒmen),你们(nǐmen),她们(tāmen),他们(tāmen),孩子们(háizimen),学生们(xuéshēngmen),etc.
for animals and plants and other things we usually don’t use any plural marker, however, if you have some plants or pets you really love and take them as your babies or friends, you can use 们(men). e.g. 我(wǒ)爱(ài)我(wǒ)的(de) 小猫(xiǎomāo)们(men)。 我(wǒ)的(de)花们(huāmen) 死(sǐ)了(le)。

here you want to eat the animals! so don’t use们… :mrgreen:

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蓝大卫 says:

@LanZi
Are you the new person Nicole who David and Echo mentioned on News #13? If so, 欢迎! Glad you liked the humor and thank you for your explanation.
It would be nice to have your photo pictured with David, Echo, and Zhouli so we can have an idea about who you are.

@zhouli,
Thank you too for your help. You don’t have to worry about your cat…I wouldn’t look to it for a food source. :wink: I imagine that Chinese are perhaps a little bolder in their range of meat consumption than we Americans, but pet animals are definitely out of that range.

There are some vegetarians in American who can be rather “in your face” about eating meat, so I imagine that T-shirt was returning the favor. I’m
originally from Kansas….beef country, so I tend to sympathize with the
sentiments of the person I saw in Phoenix.

Off to McDonalds!!!!!

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Echo says:

@蓝大卫,

It was said some people in Guang Dong, they do eat cats :???: Can’t believe it. 恶心!(e3xin1)

–Echo

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蓝大卫 says:

I was thinking more in the line of dog. I’ve seen photos of shops in north east China near North Korea that sold dog. I even recognized the 狗 character.
Also, isn’t 蛇 more acceptable to the Chinese palate than the American? For sea food, we tend to stick to fish, shrimp, lobster, etc. but turn our noses at more exotic things like sea anemone , etc.

I’ll ask my father-in-law about the cats, he was born in the 广东,广西 area.

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蓝大卫 says:

Instead of saying 可以不放肉吗?could one say 可以不加肉吗?or
可以不用肉吗?

The first sentence literally says “can you not place/release meat?” which is an interesting insight as to how Chinese would say this. We’d say don’t “add” or
“use”。 Another possible way we’d say it is “would you omit the meat?”
How could that be stated in Chinese?

多谢!

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

Yes, I am Nicole! Will upload a photo soon after i figure out how… :neutral: Or do you mean a photo of people in the office together? Pity we haven’t got anything like that yet. Perhaps will do soon.

Your father-in-law was from 广东广西 area? 我也是! People there do eat cats, not pet cat though. Mostly wild ones. My father has been a hunter for more than 20 years. But I said ‘no’ to his 战利品 most of the time. Not that it’s about animals’ lives or anything. It’s just they are not that tasted. I prefer chicken, pork and beef. I think my father and his generation love eating wild animals because they believed it’s good for health. Plus it feels like conquering the nature maybe. They cook those animals in all kinds of way and name them supercool-ly(?), like 龙虎凤(dragon tiger and phoenix), which is actually 蛇、山猫、山鸡or鸟类. They put them in jars to make 补酒 too!

@Echo
Now you know more about me and my family. :wink:

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

“可以不放肉吗”and“可以不加肉吗” are the two ways I hear people say it. “omit” in 广东 we say “走”(zou3,go). Probably not in Beijing. For example, “走蔥”(zou3cong1)means “omit the green onion”. But i never say “走肉”… “走葱” is a set phrase then.

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蓝大卫 says:

To update your avatar, simply click on that silhouette and it will take you to
http://en.gravatar.com/, however, I was referring to your photo being posted here with the others:

http://www.chineseclass101.com/about-us/member-introduction/

What sort of “Lan” are you? Do we share the same surname??? :smile:

谢谢你帮我!

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

Wow I didn’t know that page. :shock: Seems everyone has an impressive resume. Afraid I need some time to get on that. By that time I would quote “i love animal. They are tasty” :lol:

Yes! We share the same surname 蓝. What’s more exciting, we share the same first name “wei”. Mine is 蔚 as in 蔚蓝(wei4lan2,blue). So practically my name is blue blue…

Thank you for your help!

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蓝大卫 says:

@LanZi/Nicole.

Hmmm….. do you think we might be related??? :razz:

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

Definitely! :smile:

The surname 蓝 is from 秦子, named after the place 蓝田, according to this:

http://www.qingyunju.com/name/qiyuan/nian.htm

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蓝大卫 says:

哎,我的中文还差得远哪。 :smile: 我看不懂。看起来个中国姓氏database, 对吗?
看起来你posted 你的照片。谢谢。 很高兴认识你!

我用“蓝” 因为听起来我的英语姓氏.

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

老实说,我也看不懂 :smile: 对,中国姓氏都是很有历史的。是啊我贴了照片,很高兴认识你,dim sum… 你的照片呢?你的英语姓氏是什么?可以说吗?

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蓝大卫 says:

我的avatar 不是点心,是酱牛肉春饼(jiàng niúròu chūn bǐng)。看起来个中国burrito, 有很多牛肉。非常好吃。 :smile: 在台湾台北我吃了酱牛肉春饼。饭店叫穆記。在台北穆記很流行. 在这儿,个饭店也有酱牛肉春饼,但是蔬菜太多,牛肉太少。 :sad:

对, 以前我说了,但是我告诉你,我的姓氏是Landis.
Echo 告诉了我她喜欢我的中文名字。 :smile:

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

台北果然很多小吃!酱牛肉春饼我没吃过,有空找来吃吃。不行,你的avatar太诱人,一看就流口水。

Landis! 蓝大卫,很合适,nice name!可惜我的名字找不到这么搭的女生的英文名 :sad:

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zhouli says:

@LanZi,
别伤心呀,lanzi就很好呀。抱抱 :neutral:

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蓝大卫 says:

Both “Nicole” and 蓝蔚 are nice names. I believe the 蔚蓝 translates as “azure blue”. Hope you can find some 酱牛肉春饼 in Beijing!!

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

Thanks. Have you noticed names in mainland China and Taiwan or Hong Kong are different in terms of the number of characters. Mainland China tends to name in two characters like Zhou Li, Lan Wei, Yao Wei. While outside mainland they are using three characters most of the time, like Lin Chi-ling, Hou Pei-cen.

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蓝大卫 says:

@LanZi,

Yes, I noticed. I same with Chinese names from America….I’m a three character name. :smile: Is it very common to find people with the name
complete name? We run into it occasionally here in the States.

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LanZi says:

@Zhouli

一不小心漏掉了你的留言。多谢 :smile:

@LanZi

I find two-character-names only popular in younger generations. For my parents and their peers all have three character names. Since there are only two characters, people have to find really complicated or rare character for their kids. I learnt new characters in many of my friends’ names. :smile:

What is the complete name you are referring to?

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蓝大卫 says:

@LanZi.

:oops: My last message was a bit confusing. Wish there was an edit function like there is on the forum.

Do you often encounter people who have the same given and surnames as other people? It would seem that if there is a limited number of surnames and many of them are high frequency (张,马, 王, 黄), that you’d run into duplication of names,especially if there is a two character limit.

Given that, I could see picking a really rare character to make the complete name more unique.

Last week, I was pinged on FaceBook by someone who thought I worked in the Air Force in the 1990s in Texas so it even happens to me on occasion,
and my surname in English isn’t that common.

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LanZi says:

@蓝大卫

Absolutely yes! My surname and given name are really rare both as separate characters and a combination, nevertheless i found dozens of duplication in Google. There is one public servant, one teacher, one archeologist and…me.

Very few people have a one-and-only name. According to a highly authoritative research (carried out by me), only four of the people I know does. By that I mean there are only one or two pages of google results of their names and they are all about themselves. But they are not happy about that, feeling insecure and such.

If i were to name my kid, i would prefer a longer one like four characters, since seldom Chinese do that. That would be easier than picking a rare and most of the time weird character.

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