The first word you probably learned for happy, or happiness, in Chinese is 高兴 (gāo xìng), as in 认识你很高兴 (rèn shi nǐ hěn gāo xìng) – pleased to meet you. Like the dictionary says, you can also use 厉害 (lì hai) to describe particularly intense or bad situations, illnesses, or animals.įor example, 上海堵车很厉害 (Shàng hǎi dǔ chē hěn lì hai) – Shanghai’s traffic jams are really bad! So, what he actually meant (I hope) was that my badminton skills were impressively top-notch! ![]() But, as it turns out, in everyday life 厉害 (lì hai) is often used positively to mean “awesome” or “impressive”. Not a great first impression, I thought to myself. The first time I heard the word 厉害 (lì hai) was when I’d just squeezed a narrow victory from a particularly tough rival.Īfter the match, he said to me “Pippa, 你很厉害 (nǐ hěn lì hai)!” Never having heard this expression before, I promptly looked it up in my dictionary. I love to win, and tend to go all out to try to beat my opponent. One of my favorite hobbies in China is playing badminton. 厉害 (lì hai) – impressive, awesome, serious That’s why I want to introduce five super useful “need to know” - but tough to translate - Chinese words that I wish someone had explained to me when I first started learning!!ġ. ![]() This makes it difficult for learners – especially outside of China – to really get the hang of these uniquely Chinese expressions. ![]() To add fuel to the fire, textbooks often don’t take the time to explain these nuances, and instead just translate vocabulary directly (probably from the same dictionary you are using). This happens because Chinese has loads of really great expressions that don’t have exact English equivalents, or are used in completely different situations than you might expect. But, the dictionary offers ten different definitions and you don’t know which one is right, or (even worse) none of them seem to make any sense! We’ve all had the feeling: you see a new word, and immediately rush to the dictionary (or your iPhone) to check it out.
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