Playing With Chinese: Basketball Phrases

Basketball is one of my favorite sports, and it's insanely popular in China as well. If you spend a few days around younger guys, you may be surprised how often you are asked if you like Lebron or Kobe. The NBA has made leaps and bounds in penetrating the Chinese market, and the Chinese Basketball Association is nothing to scoff at. With 18 teams and a fan base over 300 million, the CBA has grown spectacularly in under 20 years. The only complaint I have: why doesn't Zhengzhou have a team!?

Enough with the chit-chat. You want to ball, but your pickup teammates don't know the difference between "pass it here" and "take a shot." Hopefully these phrases can serve you well on the court.

Some Basic Phrases - Offense

Good shot - 好球 hǎo qiú

Pass it here - 传我 chuán wǒ

Give me the ball - 把球给我 bǎ qiú gěi wǒ

I'm open - 我没人防 wǒ méi rén fáng (literally: I don't have a person guarding me)

I'm open - 我在空位 wǒ zài kōngwèi (literally: I'm in open space)

Pick and roll - 挡拆 dǎng chāi

Watch out behind you - 后面有人 hòumian yǒu rén (literally: person behind you)

A more colloquial way to say this is 后面有狗 (gǒu), meaning dog behind you

Basic Phrases - Defense

Make a steal - 快断他的球 kuài duàn tā de qiú (literally: quickly break his ball)

Rebound - 篮板 lán bǎn (verb and noun)

Who are you guarding? - 你防谁 nǐ fáng shéi

Guard him - 去防他 qù fáng tā


Other Useful Phrases

What's the score? - 几比几了 jǐ bǐ jǐ le

The score is __ to __ - 现在__比__ xiàn zài __ bǐ __

Time out - 暂停 zàn tíng

I got a hot hand - 手感火热 shǒu gǎn huǒ rè (literally: hand feels fiery)

Other Vocab Words

Layup - 上篮 shǎng lán

Three pointer - 投三分  tóu sān fēn

Two pointer - 投两分 tóu liǎng fēn

Dribble - 运球 yùn qiú

Assist - 助攻 zhù gōng

Foul - 犯规 fàn guī (You can shout this to call a foul)

Pump-fake (or any move) - 假动作 jiǎ dòng zuò

Free throw - 罚球 fá qiú

Dunk - 扣篮 kòu lán

Jump shot - 跳投 tiào tóu

Fadeaway - 后仰跳投 hòu yǎng tiào tóu


That's quite a lot of information. Try these out the next time you play a pickup game on a Chinese court and you might get some stares, but you might also get the ball. If I'm able to find some more colloquial terms I will be sure to update this page. Ditto if I can find some nice examples of these phrases in use.

Playing With Chinese: How to Play

First and foremost, this is not a site for absolute beginners. If you are interested in learning Chinese but have not started the process, here's what you need to do: bookmark this page and hit the books. First, get your pinyins in order. Watch a couple videos on pinyin pronunciation. I won't link to any of them because there are a million out there (and they're all stupid as fuck). Alternatively, you can go through this site to get a handle on the different sounds in 普通话.

Could you not read those characters? Next thing you need to do is get a browser extension that does pop-up character definitions. I use Zhongwen for Chrome and can recommend it. No recommendations for Firefox users, but I know there are extensions out there. Safari and IE people... Just stop.

Use the built-in features in Zhongwen to start making your vocabulary list, or Anki, or paper flashcards, or a combination of all of them. Get a book and start burning through it like Kim fucking Peek. Learn how to write that shit because you don't want to be an illiterate 乡巴佬 (xiāngbalǎo, hick). Learning how to write the characters is essential because it helps with memorizing and differentiating similar characters.

Last but not least, make sure you take time out of your busy life to study every day.

That's it for my tips on how to begin learning Chinese. The format for how this website will offer phrases is simple:

English word/phrase - 汉字 (pīnyīn)

I may or may not include pictures, video, audio, or other resources that will help reinforce the material.

Welcome to Playing With Chinese

Playing With Chinese is a blog dedicated to two things: learning Mandarin Chinese (普通话) and playing games.

When I say playing games, I mean all games. Athletic sports are the first that come to mind for many people, but these are only a small portion of the kinds of games that are out there. Bar games, card games, video games, school yard games, board games, driving-in-a-car-and-bored games, you name it. These are all forms of entertainment that unquestionably fall under the umbrella term "games," and they are all fair game here at Playing With Chinese.

Here is a quick list of some of the games I will try to tackle in the coming months:

• Pool/Billiards
• Poker (Texas Hold'em and Five Card Stud)
• Mahjong 
• Basketball
• Chinese Chess
• Soccer/Football
• Darts
• Ping Pong
• Badminton
• Tennis
• Tag
• Freeze Tag
• Hide and Seek
• Rock-Paper-Scissors
• Capture the Flag
• League of Legends
• First-person Shooters (e.g. CrossFire)

I am not a native speaker of Chinese and I cannot say I speak Chinese, but I am fortunate enough to be living in China at the moment. I'm also a gamer in every sense of the word. All of my life I have enjoyed games, and moving to a foreign country has not changed this base motivation of mine. 

The best way to learn a language is to learn something that can be applied to real world situations and use it; this was the genesis of Playing With Chinese. Day after day, I find myself playing a game with a Chinese person who cannot speak English. Both of us, however, speak the language of the game. What better way to help bridge the language gap than to be able to chat about the game?

Just as this is a learning experience for me, I would like to pass on any knowledge to those interested. If you have recommendations for games, are fluent in Chinese and English, are interested in games or language acquisition, or just think this is a cool idea, please leave a comment!

Cheers,

Zach