Tuesday 22 January 2008

曲棍球 – qū gùn qiú – Hockey


The first character today is 曲, qū meaning curved. If you examine the character carefully you will notice that there isn’t a single curved line in it. It’s all straight lines. Not all Chinese characters are pictograms.

The second character is 棍, gùn meaning stick.

The third character is 球, qiú meaning ball.

Curved stick ball is the literal translation, and that’s pretty much what Hockey is!

qū is pronounced chew, with a 1st or high, level tone.

gùn is pronounced like gun in English, with a 4th or falling tone.

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