Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hi! Welcome to ChineseClass101.com. My name is Rui. Today, we are going to talk about 5 most popular sports in China.
1. 篮球 (lán qiú) "basketball"
篮球是中国人最喜爱的第一大运动。 (Lánqiú shì zhōngguórén zuì xǐ'ài de dì yī dà yùndòng.) "Basketball is the most popular sport in China."
I remember in my high school, basketball became popular because of the Japanese cartoon, Slam Dunk. The cartoon Slam Dunk was very popular and because of that cartoon, basketball became so popular at that time.
2. 足球 (zú qiú) "soccer"
足 (Zú) means “foot”, 球 (qiú) means “ball”.
在中国喜爱足球的人很多。 (Zài Zhōngguó xǐ'ài zúqiú de rén hěnduō.) "Many people love soccer in China."
As you may know, Chinese national team are not so good at soccer. We’re good at so many sports, but not soccer. It’s kind of a mystery in China. We don’t know why, yeah. If you know why, please comment, let me know. I want to know why Chinese are not good at soccer, but good at many sports instead.
3. 乒乓球 (pīng pāng qiú) "table tennis"
乒乓球的是中国的国球。 (Pīngpāng qiú de shì Zhōngguó de guó qiú.) "Table tennis is the national sport of China."
So in my childhood, my parents wanted to train me into a tomboy so they send me to the kind of professional table tennis school and I went there every day after class, have 1 hour table tennis training. I didn’t like it at first, but when you become good at it and you have so many friends who play with you, it’s kind of fun. Now, I kind of miss it. I haven’t played it for a long time. So when I was a kid, I’m doing this movement maybe 1000 times, one class like repeatedly like this. I remember I have to stop here, my left eyebrow, here, here, repeatedly doing it until your response to the ball from your competitors is very quick without any consideration, yeah. So it becomes an automatic response when you have balls come from your competitors.
4. 体操 (tǐ cāo) "gymnastics"
我们全家都喜欢看体操比赛。 (Wǒmen quánjiā dōu xǐhuan kàn tǐcāo bǐsài.) "All of my family members like to watch gymnastics."
So in this sentence, there was a Chinese kanji or word, 单词 (dāncí), 都 (dōu) - 我们全家都喜欢看体。 (Wǒmen quánjiā dōu xǐhuan kàn.), 都 (dōu). When the subject is plural like we or they or my family or my class like something or are doing something, we add a 都 (dōu). For example, all of my family members 都 (dōu) like gymnastics. So in Chinese, we add a 都 (dōu) when the subject is plural. We don’t have this for “I like…”. I like gymnastics is okay. We 都 (dōu) like gymnastics so to emphasize everybody shares the common preferences for gymnastics.
5. 羽毛球 (yǔ máo qiú) "badminton"
奥运会的羽毛球赛很精彩。 (Àoyùnhuì de yǔmáoqiú sài hěn jīngcǎi.) "The badminton matches of the Olympic Games were very exciting."

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