Mandarin sentence – How to say ” My winter break has just begun” in Chinese: 我的寒假才刚刚开始。phrases:spring break, summer break, holiday, vacation, take day off, and grammar cai, gang, gang gang, cai gang gang and Green Day Holiday

Posted on 12/22/2011 by Chinesetolearn

Did you just finish your finals? If so, your much anticipated winter break is right there for you to enjoy. Let’s learn how to say ” My winter break has just begun” in Chinese: 我的寒假才刚刚开始。wo3 de5 han2 jia4 cai2 gang1 gang1 kai1 shi3.

wo3 de5 (我的 possessive pronoun, my) han2 jia4 (寒假 han2 originally means cold, jia4 means holiday; winter break took place at very chilly and freezing month, thus, it is called han2 jia4) cai2 (才 adverb, just now) gang1 gang1 （刚刚adverb, just recently) kai1 shi3 (开始 compound verbs, start).

Cai2 才, gang1 刚 and gang1 gang1 刚刚 all are adverbs, and all mean just now, just recently. Gang1 gang1 刚刚 is similar to gang1 刚, but the time is much shorter than 刚 “gang”.

You can say:

wo3 de5 han2 jia4 gang1 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 刚 开 始

or

wo3 de5 han2 jia4 cai2 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 才 开 始

or
wo3 de5 han2 jia4 gang1 gang1 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 刚 刚 开 始

But if you really want to be emphatic, and sound like it just happened like two seconds ago, then you can use 才 cai2 + 刚刚 gang1 gang1 to show your enthusiasm about something is soooooo new, it JUST happened!!! As today’s one Chinese sentence a day’s main sentence
wo3 de5 han2 jia4 cai2 gang1 gang1 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 才 刚 刚 开 始
My winter break has ***JUST**** begun!!!!!!!

Besides the meaning of just now, just recently, Gang1 gang1 has another definition – just, exactly.

For example,
This pair of shoes, not big not small, just fine （exactly fine).
这双鞋， 不大不小，刚刚好。

For winter break, we know it is 寒假 han2 jia4, for summer break, it is 暑假 shu3 jia4, and spring break it is 春假 chun1 jia4. The verb to go with break is 放 fang4. 放假 means to get time off school or work due to holiday.

For example, you can say “Yay, we have winter break now!” in Chinese, it is: Yay wo3 men5 xian4 zai4 fang4 han2 jia4 le5. Yay 我们现在放寒假了。

Fang4 jia4 放假 is different from 度假 du4 jia4 (have vacation). Du4 jia4 is like you go to Europe two weeks for traveling. If you want to have a vacation when you are having your winter break, then you can say: wo3 fang4 han2 jia4 de5 shi2 hou4 xiang3 qu4 du4 jia4. 我放寒假的时候想去度假。

Have a wonderful winter break there, and enjoy your holiday season. Don’t forget to memorize the poems if you want to do the contest !!!!!! Annie, Rory, Cam, Zack and 朋美!

Let’s conclude today’s post with one of Green Day’s songs; Yes, the song is called — Holiday!!! In Chinese, we call it jia4 qi2 假期

Posted in Chinese grammar, English song, One Chinese sentence a day | Tagged , | Comments Off on Mandarin sentence – How to say ” My winter break has just begun” in Chinese: 我的寒假才刚刚开始。phrases:spring break, summer break, holiday, vacation, take day off, and grammar cai, gang, gang gang, cai gang gang and Green Day Holiday

Chinese proverb, phrases, Mandarin sentence – How to say “Great minds think alike” in Chinese: 英雄所见略同 ying xiong suo jian lue tong. Also 巾帼英雄 Jin guo ying xiong heroine, martial art hero Jet Li, Lady general Hua Mulan and Taiwan (Republic of China) Military song -Heroes and good guys in one class 英雄好漢在一班

Posted on 12/21/2011 by Chinesetolearn

Chinese phrases, Mandarin sentence – How to say “Great minds think alike” in Chinese: 英雄所见略同 ying1 xiong2 suo3 jian4 lue4 tong2. ying1 xiong2 (英雄 noun, heroes) suo3 (所 pronoun, what) jian4 （见 verb, see) lue4 (略 adverb, roughly) tong2 (同 adjective, same, alike).

英雄所见略同 ying1 xiong2 suo3 jian4 lue4 tong2 literally means: What heroes see is roughly the same. How should we use it in conversation?

Here is an example:
A: “This summer I’ve decided to take intensive Chinese lessons.”
这个夏天我决定去上密集中文课。
zhe4 ge5 xia4 tian1 wo3 jue2 ding4 qu4 shang4 mi4 ji2 zhong1 wen2 ke4.

B: “Really? Me too. I have already paid for the course.”
真的吗？我也是。我以经付了学费了。
zhen1 de5 ma1? wo3 ye3 shi4. wo3 yi3 jing1 fu4 le5 xue2 fei4 le5.

A: “Great minds think alike.”
英雄所见略同。
ying1 xiong2 suo3 jian4 lei4 tong2.

英雄 Ying1 xiong2 mean: Extraordinary outstanding figure. Refers to the people with superior opinion or outstanding and intelligent leaders. So, there are many kinds of heroes. For example, Hercules is a famous Greek legend hero, and he is known for his great strength; Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese heroine, she has dedicated her life to freeing Burma from a repressive dictatorship and creating democracy without violence. Some heroes or heroines are well known by people in the world, and some are so called 无名英雄 wu2 ming2 ying1 xiong2 unsung heroes. So many heroes in various fields are not recognized or honored. Even bees in the summer are the unsung heroes, they help with the reproduction of plants and give people honey, and are super famous for their buzzzzzzzzzzz sound too (maybe the sound buzz inspired the film maker to make the famous Toy Story Buzz Lightyear?

For female heroes or heroines, we call them 巾帼英雄 Jin1 guo2 ying1 xiong2. 巾帼 originally means women’s headdress, and thus later, people use part of women’s wear to represent women in general. So, 巾帼 means women. We have a phrase called 巾帼不让须眉 jin1 guo2 bu2 rang4 xu1 mei2 – women are not inferior to any man. Xu1 mei2 须眉 originally means beard and eyebrows, and later people used some part of men’s feature to represent men in general.

Ancient China has a famous 巾帼英雄 and her name is called Mulan 木兰 mu4 lan2 or 花木兰 hua1 mu4 lan2。
See http://www.chinesetolearn.com/?p=351 for more info about Ballad Mulan.

Jet Li VS Wu Shu Master： Jet Li is one of China’s martial art heroes.

Lady general Hua Mulan

Taiwan (Republic of China) Military song -Heroes and good guys in one class 英雄好漢在一班 ying1 xiong2 hao3 han4 zai4 yi4 ban1

Posted in Chinese proverbs, One Chinese sentence a day | Tagged , | Comments Off on Chinese proverb, phrases, Mandarin sentence – How to say “Great minds think alike” in Chinese: 英雄所见略同 ying xiong suo jian lue tong. Also 巾帼英雄 Jin guo ying xiong heroine, martial art hero Jet Li, Lady general Hua Mulan and Taiwan (Republic of China) Military song -Heroes and good guys in one class 英雄好漢在一班