Date: September 16th, 2004
Cate: Chinese Word of the Day
Tags:

– Zhou1 – Circuit, All Around, Help, A Surname, Week

There are three ways to say “Week” in Chinese:

星期 – Xing1 Qi1 – Star Cycle — Week
禮拜 – Li3 Bai4 – Ceremony Pray — Week
– Zhou1 – Week

You can find out why this is, why it’s controversial, and the answers to every other question you could possibly think of related to the naming of days and weeks (backed up by reams of links and references) at the amazing Days of the Week in Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.

(via)

1 Comment

  1. zonblezonble  
    September 18th, 2004
    REPLY))

  2. FYI, there is a joke about 周 of a TV reporter in Taiwan. There was a ceremony in Taiwan in the plaza before the palace of out president, and a jet fighter was flying around the palace. The stuff work for that television station wrote a note and asked that reporter to announce it on the TV screen, the note said, “The jet fighter will fly around the palace in a circle.”(繞行一周) That reporter was thinking, well, the audience may not understand what 繞行一周 is at once while watching, and then she altered the text said that, “the jet fighter will fly around the palace for seven days.” 一周 should be a circle here, but she misunderstood it and consider it means a week. :)

    1F

Leave a Reply

 Name

 Mail

 Home

[Name and Mail is required. Mail won't be published.]