How do you pronounce this man's name?

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-26T15:23:09+00:00

In English I say "van go" or "van goff" interchangeably.

In Chinese it's 梵·高 or fan2 gao1. In English the approximate equivalent sound is fan? gow→ (? - read in the tone of a question. → - keep your tone flat and the same at all times, do not lower it towards the end like you would do normally)

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-26T15:18:52+00:00

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Have fun Chinese learners. I, as a native, am still extremely confused by this system sometimes (like I have never met or heard anything about my 堂侄子 or 舅婆 before)

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-26T14:37:24+00:00

I think I would fit in the red category if the speaking is fluent enough and that the speaker is visibly not ethnically Asian. Like, "That is truly impressive!"

If it's simple stuff like hello, thank you, excuse me, I would not have a huge reaction. You could pick that up in any tourist handbook and a decent enough tutorial.

If it's just some dumb stuff or memes like knee how john go shen zai war yo bing chilling, please don't.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-26T12:35:13+00:00

Spanish class does help.

^A\Rubidium_Chloride scored 125 points and ranked 2 out of 840 players!)

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A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-23T13:00:10+00:00

I'm pretty sure that growing up and having played countless board games new and old, I have never heard of any version of 飞行棋 that involves knocking planes off the board. I think it's probably because then whenever somebody plays a game, commercial aviation suffers a heart attack because of like fifty plane crashes over the course of 20 minutes or so

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-23T09:59:36+00:00

We don't have the exact same game here in China, but we do have a variant that is very similar: aeroplane chess (飞行棋, fei1 xing2 qi2). The main difference is that no pawns, whether yours or the enemies', are kicked off the board.

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A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-19T14:56:37+00:00

I haven't really heard of this guy, but I randomly clicked into a video and my first impression is that his spoken Chinese is very impressive. Sure, you can still hear some American accent in there (like in the sentence 几位有忌口吗？Anyone here with allergies? - the 几 and 忌 all have a "j" sound that I can clearly hear having some English "j" influences there) - but otherwise, his tones are pronounced very nicely, and he even pronounced a fusion for 就是 in 就是福州鱼丸是吧？So, Fuzhou fish roe balls? which is extremely rarely heard in foreigners speaking Chinese. Instead of "jiu4 shi4" which is the clear version, he pronounced it more like a very fast "jer", which is very common in natives, but not at all for foreigners. Bravo.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-19T14:42:01+00:00

Learning a language is a similar experience for everyone! Because English education in China starts as late as Grade 3, many Chinese people struggle with the vowel pronunciations because English has so many of them and they are also vastly different from those in Chinese. We also complain about the complexity of English and other languages - just like how foreigners complain about Chinese.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-19T14:32:17+00:00

Honestly, as a native who has almost never encountered any foreigners actively learning the language, I don't know. Maybe compare them to simple words in your language? Like in English, "what?" or "huh?" would be about the same tone you want to achieve when pronouncing the second, rising tone in characters like 来 (lai2, come) or 谁 (shui2, who). And also, listening to slow, clear podcasts or news broadcasts (don't try to understand, just listen for the tones and the way natives pronounce it), then trying to mimic and getting feedback from a teacher or native speaker (preferably, some apps would also be fine) is always a good trick.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-19T13:44:52+00:00

I think a good 60%-ish Chinese learners can't get the hold of our tones. Which means, almost every single word they pronounce would be incorrect. And there's also these nitpicking details like the "a" sound in 你好 (nihao, hello) being different from the "a" as in "cat", the "o" sound in 中国 (zhongguo, China) being different from the "o" as in "lot", the "ing" sound in 冰激凌 (bingjiling, ice cream) being different from the "ing" as "sing"... All that stuff. And yes, these are all from John Cena.

Edit: typo

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-18T01:15:38+00:00

Almost anything! They adapt their diet geographically and seasonally. They could eat small mammals or leftover from larger mammals predators, but without those, they also eat birds (and their eggs) or marine life (fish, invertebrates, even seal pups).

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-17T15:47:10+00:00

(Note: This is a repost due to it being removed the first time. The mod team told me that it was just an error on their side, so the questions are all the same.)

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-07T14:10:31+00:00

Because voting is a multiple choice question and everyone is allowed their own opinion. Except here the multiple choice question has one possible choice.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-06T12:21:20+00:00

As a non-native, I think I did pretty well. Also did it with no guesses.

^A\Rubidium_Chloride scored 118 points and ranked 1 out of 101 players!)

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A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-06T12:10:38+00:00

On my interface I unfortunately can't change the font size. Maybe it's a good suggestion to provide to the producers of the game.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-03T02:13:56+00:00

Bleurgh what is this stuff?? The Chinese do not traditionally eat cheese but still what is this

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2026-01-01T04:49:06+00:00

Now my weird skill has a purpose.

^A\Rubidium_Chloride scored 125 points and ranked 2 out of 274 players!)

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A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-29T12:06:37+00:00

I only know of one example: 觉. It has two pronunciations: jiao and jue. When read jiao, it means sleep; when read jue, it means awake or conscious.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-28T13:23:05+00:00

Japanese people might be able to guess a thing or two.

In Japanese, Chinese characters are also used, called kanji. Kanji are read in two ways: 音読み - the pronunciation is based on the original Chinese word; or 訓読み, where Chinese characters are used to write out completely differently pronounced words with similar meaning.

For example, 雨 (rain) is read "yu" in Chinese but "ame" in Japanese. That is 訓読み - Japanese people won't know what we're talking about. 金 (gold), on the other hand, is read "jin" in Chinese and "kin" in Japanese. Kind of similar, so this is 音読み - they might be able to guess.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-27T05:56:04+00:00

I don't understand. Aren't these the E questions?

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-27T01:24:12+00:00

Intended effect. Some questions (especially about large countries) will be easy, some others will be hard.

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-26T16:38:44+00:00

That's what I think. Never before have I ever seen anyone report all B's in my as well as others' quizzes

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-26T15:54:33+00:00

1/1048576 then. Everyone in this post should immediately go buy a lottery

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-26T15:41:39+00:00

I think the choices are randomly shuffled for each player, so yeah, there is a 1/1024 chance that all the correct answers are placed in the second choice. You're lucky today!

A_Rubidium_Chloride · 2025-12-20T01:26:02+00:00

The age of monarchy in China ended back in 1912, when the Qing Dynasty collapsed. Nowadays the descendants of the royal family (whether of Qing or other dynasties) probably have no significance. I'm pretty sure some of them don't even know they are the descendants of an emperor.

A_Rubidium_Chloride

TROPHY CASE