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Basketball Chinese

Wednesday, 18th June 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

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The NBA Finals ended today, with the Boston Celtics handling the Los Angeles Lakers, 131-92 to win the series 4-2. NBA fans in China got their CCTV broadcasts back in time to watch the series.

If you're interested in both basketball and Mandarin, use the interval between the NBA championships and the start of what should be a very competitive Olympic basketball tournament to brush up on your Chinese basketball terms.

Here are a few to get you started. If you have anything to add or are looking for any particular terms, shoot us a comment.

Zone defense 区域联防 qūyùliánfáng

Traveling 走步 zǒubù

Shot/shoot (only for basketball) 投篮 tóulán

Rebound (noun) 篮板球 lánbǎnqiú

Dribble/dribbling 运球 yùnqiú

NBA stars also have Chinese nicknames. Find some of them on this handy if outdated chart on the NBA Web site.

Finally, as a little bonus material, while doing some online research for this post, we happened on this clip of Isiah Thomas (aka 微笑刺客, wēixiào cìkè, the Smiling Assassin) giving some basic ball handling pointers, dubbed in Chinese.

Image: Tom.com

Tags: basketball, language, Mandarin, NBA playoffs

How Do You Say Baseball in Chinese?

Wednesday, 26th March 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

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If you've been studying Chinese for any length of time, you're probably familiar with the ever useful ChinesePod, the Shanghai-based company that provides daily lessons in spoken Mandarin.

In the run-up to the Olympics, they have been serving up plenty of sports content, including this recent lesson on baseball. Some helpful ChinesePod users have also posted the Chinese names of baseball terms, positions and teams in the site's comments section.

By the way, the answer to the above question is bàngqiú, 棒球. Softball is lěiqiú, 垒球.

Tags: baseball, ChinesePod, language, Mandarin