LM Issue #12: What do mahjong and noodles have in common?
On tricking your brain into learning and hǎochī de cài (tasty dishes)
你好 - nĭ hăo readers, and happy Monday my fellow mandarin learners!
How is your mandarin this month? I must admit the most progress I’ve made on Mandarin has been through buying a bag of mandarins from the supermarket this week… 🍊🍊🍊 Some weeks it feels like words fly out of my head faster than I can learn them. Tài màn le. So slow. 太慢了.
Sometimes by making it fun we can xué - learn - without putting in as much effort. One recommendation is to wán yóuxì - play games! Here’s one - Mahjong (Májiàng)! If you don’t know how to play Májiàng, never fear - it’s similar to rummy. Apps like “Joy Chinese Mahjong” are great in that you can hear them say the character names while playing so you can learn to pronounce heaps of new words. It’s a lot of fun but can be tricky learning to identify the characters. Shàng zhōumò wǒmen dǎ májiàng 上週末我們打麻將 - we played Májiàng last weekend…
So while we were playing Májiàng (I lost, wǒ shūle, 我輸了) we got hungry (wǒmen è le, 我們餓了), and so Tien-Yueh made us punny noodles. Not just any miàn - noodles…. májiàng miàn!
má - jiàng - miàn
Sesame - sauce - noodles
Sounds like májiàng but tastes better than tiles! It’s hǎochī - tasty - and full of zhīma - sesame - 芝麻. Here’s a recipe if you’d like to try it at home.
So what can we learn this week?
Here’s some classic májiàng vocab:
Hú - I’ve won! (If you’re like me you may not need this word much…)
Yòu shū le - Oh no, I’ve lost again! (this one, I learnt)
Pòng! - SNAP but for májiàng
Tīngpái! - I’m one tile away from winning
Gōngxǐ 恭喜 - Congratulations - say this to be a gracious loser!
That’s all for now. Zàijiàn! 👋🏽 Goodbye, and until next week,
Emily