How do you say "Take a guess?" ... actually I know.
GAME SHOWS - over at this week's Movie Madness we were asked to guess the name of the movie dubbed into Chinese. It's fun to do. As I was waiting for our hosts to reveal the movie I thought of a common exchange I have in China. It goes like this:
LT: 你猜。
AB: 猜不到。
LT: 哦
(LT: ni cai; AB: cai bu dao; LT: o)
(LT: You guess; AB: I have no idea; LT: Ohh)
cai1, 猜, verb to guess. Hanzi radical looks like a cat/animal and qing
My variations include,
你猜一下。 猜一下吧。
Anyway, it's one of my 'secret techniques' to prolong a conversation until I'm ignored. Hey...gotta engage the Chinese somehow! BTW, the "cai" is not particularly easy to pronounce correctly, but after making them guess that you're asking to guess is a fun exchange too!
Anybody else got some good conversation starters, prolongers, give-me-time-to think, Chinese phrases?
Comments (9) 

New lesson idea? Please contact us.