chinese for explaining american football to others

adam_p_lax
April 24, 2013, 04:50 AM posted in General Discussion

Hi all,

I'm an American and I wanted to explain the rules of american football to my Chinese friend. Unfortunately I don't really know the terms for American football to explain it to him. Do you know where I could find that? I've checked NCIKU and they have some words but not enough to help me explain the rules.

 

thanks!

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pretzellogic
April 24, 2013, 05:50 AM

The Patriots used to have a Chinese language portion of their website devoted to explaining football rules to people.  But I can't find it.  

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pretzellogic

Oh, here it is.

http://www.nflchina.com/

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pretzellogic

Even better.

http://www.nflchina.com/knowledge/classroom/2007-03-13/5008.html

Have fun explaining "hail-mary", "the immaculate reception", "play-action", "pulling guards","illegal man downfield" and "roughing the passer". The "shotgun" would be nice. I don't think John Madden's book "One Knee Equals Two Feet" was ever translated into Chinese, but that would have great explanations of stuff.

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adam_p_lax

wow, I had no idea the NFL was trying to make a name for itself in China. Guess they wanna follow the example of the NBA though I highly doubt that would happen. great stuff though. thanks!

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Right-Wingnut
April 24, 2013, 05:58 AM

How about this for a start:

虽然一场美式橄榄球球赛历时三多个小时,但是游戏的时间只有六十分钟。大部分的时间,游戏者都在休息。

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adam_p_lax

没错不过这是在直播的时候电视台放了好多广告的原因

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Right-Wingnut

I haven't watched a game for years due to the boredom factor, but this article suggests the time I quoted of more than three hours (regardless of how it is broadcast on TV) is about right.

But I was actually being kind to the game when I said there was 60 minutes of play. It appears that the actual time the ball is in play is about 11 minutes on average. So only 6% of the duration of any game is action.

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adam_p_lax

well its not as bad as cricket where games can last for hours (8+). Thats an interesting article abt play time in football. I never really thought abt that.

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Right-Wingnut

Actually a game of test cricket is scheduled to run for 30 hours over 5 days. But few people aim to see even a majority of the game.

Anyway, American football should be compared to Rugby or Rugby League, and cricket should be compared to baseball.

An 80 minute Rugby League game last under 2 hours, and there were media complaints last month that we were losing 10-12 minutes of that time due to inaction - the amount of action you get in 3 hours of an NFL game.

The average number of balls (equivalent to pitches) per hour in a test cricket game is about 80. This compares to about 50 pitches per hour in a MLB game.

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iaing

Most people that grow up watching other forms of football find it almost impossible to watch American football live. 11 minutes of play over 3 hours is a very different experience to more "free flowing" sports. The average Chinese, who loves football or basketball, may be unlikely to ever convert over?

Speaking of cricket, this is five times more popular than American football (which apparently is "not as bad as cricket") and still no cpod lesson on the vocab of this sport? even ice hockey can get a lesson?

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/5240#comment-245198

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/13137#comment-243489

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/playing-ice-hockey#comment-201938

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bo2jia1sen1

I have tried to explain cricket to Chinese and it's not easy. Explaining it to Americans is difficult enough.

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bo2jia1sen1

I have tried to explain cricket to Chinese and it's not easy. Explaining it to Americans is difficult enough.

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bo2jia1sen1
April 25, 2013, 01:04 AM

what exactly makes you a Zhong1guo2tong1? How do you become one? I've been called an egg (because my shell is white but my heart is yellow) - is that the next level down from a Zhong1guo2tong1?

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pretzellogic

An egg. I've never heard that about a white person before. You learn something new everyday.

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adam_p_lax

I have no idea. I guess you have to be in china for a while (prob at least 5 years) and become very familiar with the language and culture.