Thursday 17 January 2008

乒乓球 - pīng pāng qiú - Table Tennis


Today’s word is Table tennis.

The first character is 乒, pīng which is an onomatopoeic word meaning a sound like “ping”.

The second character 乓, pāng is translated into English as pong!

The last character is 球, qiú meaning ball.

pīng pāng is pronounced ping pang, both with a first or high, level tone.

qiú is pronounced chyo ( to rhyme with yoyo ), with a 2nd or rising tone.