“(I) loved you once” =……= “agony”

“谐音” is a way of playing words just like what I have showed in the last blog. In English, people use “4” instead of “for”; in Chinese, people use “520” instead of “我爱你”. However, this method can also be applied between two languages, and it would be really interesting in doing so. In addition, this is exactly the way of “giving sense to the words” as I have mentioned before.

Most English words are multisyllabic and Chinese characters are monosyllabic. Thus, a single English word can be “translated to” multi Chinese characters when applying “谐音”. “谐音” is based on pronunciation, which is one of the two factors of memorizing an English word—pronunciation and meaning, the latter of which would be yielded after applying this transaction. “谐音” can bridge the spelling and meaning of a word in a very funny way. I’m going to give several examples of using it to “translate” English words into Chinese. These multisyllabic words will be separated into multi syllables, each of which will be translated to a Chinese character by “谐音”. In the following examples, I will use Pinyin to indicate the similarity of the pronunciations of a syllable and its corresponding character.

1. ambulance

a) Separate (the separation is based on one`s own demand not on formal pronunciation rules): am-bu-lan-ce
b) Correspond (the original syllable is before the dash and the corresponding Pinyin is behind the dash): am—an, bu—bu, lan—neng, ce—si.
c) Translate (the Pinyin is before the dash and the corresponding Chinese character is behind the dash): an—俺, bu—不，neng—能, si—死.
d) Combine (combine the individual characters): an-bu-neng-si——俺不能死 (I can`t dye)
e) Explain (explain the connection between the meaning of the original word and the meaning of the result of this whole transaction) Ambulance is a vehicle with special equipment and used for taking patients to a hospital. It would be quite reasonable for the patient who are waiting for an ambulance to shout out “I can’t dye!”

The whole process in reverse is given by “I can’t dye” = “俺不能死” = “an-bu-neng-si”= “am-bu-lan-ce” = “ambulance”.

This whole analyzes looks horrible but it is very simple for a Chinese to make sense from it and it would cost only few seconds for him/her to catch the connection. Personally, this is a good method to memorize some long or rare words. The most interesting part in this process is last step, which is finding out the connection between the meanings of the original word and Chinese words.

2. agony 

a) Separate: a-go-ny
b& c) Correspond & translate: a—ai—爱, go—guo—过, ny—ni—你.
d) Combine: ai-guo-ni——爱过你 ( (I) loved you once)
e) Explain: I have never involved in any romantic relationships but I have some friends who part with their boy/girlfriends. As I can see, they were really heartbroken at first and it took some time, which was weeks even years for them to recover. They must have experienced extreme mental pain, which is agony.

“(I) loved you once” = “爱过你” = “ai-guo-ni” = “a-go-ny” = “agony”


3. hermit

a) Separate: her-mi-t
b& c) Correspond & translate: her—he—何, mi—mi—觅, t—ta—他.
d) Combine: her-mi-t——何（处）觅他 ( where to find him)
e) Explain: A hermit is a person who lives alone and apart from the rest of society, especially for religious reasons. Since hermits are intended to stay away from the others, they are hard to find. “Where to find him” is the question you always have to ask when looking for a hermit.

“where to find him” = “何(处)觅他” = “he-mi-ta” = “her-mi-t” = “hermit”


4. ambition

a) Separate: am-bi-tion
b& c) Correspond & translate: am—an—俺, bi—bi—必, tion—sheng—胜
d) Combine: am-bi-tion——俺必胜 ( I must win)
e) Explain: The explanation of ambition is given by “the desire or determination to be successful, rich, powerful, etc”. For a man who is filled with ambition, “I must win” must be his /her mantra.

“I must win” = “俺必胜” = “an-bi-sheng” = “am-bi-tion” = “ambition” 

5. economy

a) Separate: e-co-no-my
b& c) Correspond & translate: e—yi—依, co—kao—靠, no—nong—农, my—min—民.
d) Combine: e-co-no-my——依靠农民 ( depends on farmers)
e) Explain: China is the biggest farming country in the world. We have almost 800 million farmers in China and it is the truth that China’s economy mostly based on agriculture in the past. Even though China is experiencing economy reconstructing now, this country still has to depend on the 800 million farmers.

“depends on farmers” = “依靠农民” = “yi-kao-nong-min” = “e-co-no-my” = “economy”


This word game is not only interesting but also a good method to memorize some hard words. I hope this blog can act as a trigger for more interesting methods to memorize vocabulary because I also suffer “agony” in memorizing them.