Kung Fu in Chinese isn’t all about fighting
When you think of the word ‘kung fu’ in Chinese you’d be forgiven for thinking of Bruce Lee, Jacky Chan, and depending on your age, Kung Fu Panda. Though, in actual fact, this word has many more uses than simply martial arts.
That’s quite a few varied definitions for one word, so how is each meaning used in a sentence? Below are four excerpts from actual news article that show each of the usages in action.
Martial Arts
Traditional
大學生搞創意 街頭上演功夫秀Simplified
大学生搞创意 街头上演功夫秀Pinyin
dàxuéshēng gǎo chuàngyì jiētóu shàng yǎn gōngfūEnglish
A university student gets creative, performs Kung Fu in the street.
Skill, Ability
Traditional
Jolin養瘦！這才是瘦身真功夫Simplified
Jolin养瘦！这才是瘦身真功夫Pinyin
Jolin yǎng shòu! zhè cái shì shòushēn zhēn gōngfūEnglish
Jolin is thinner! Now this is real dieting ability.
Time
Traditional
因為問的人多，沒功夫一一回信Simplified
因为问的人多，没功夫一一回信
Pinyin
yīnwèi wèn de rén duō, méi gōngfū yī yī huíxìnEnglish
Because so many people asked questions, there was no time to reply to them all.
Effort
Traditional
王光亞希望澳門下功夫搞好教育及人才培養Simplified
王光亚希望澳门下功夫搞好教育及人才培养Pinyin
wángguāngyǎ xīwàng àomén xiàgōngfū gǎohǎo jiàoyù jí réncái péiyǎngEnglish
Wang Guang Ya hopes that Macau can put effort into improving education and cultivating talent.
The next time you hear the word 功夫 used in Chinese you’ll know that the meaning isn’t necessarily about the martial art. This really is a useful and versatile word that is worth learning, and if you’ve learnt Chinese for long enough and complained to your teacher that it’s difficult you have no doubt heard the words 你要更下功夫一點！
Now if you are 機車 enough you could also use your new knowledge to confuse some friends who are just starting out learning Chinese.
Related Content
Dave Flynn
Dave is a designer of websites, learner of Chinese and lover of technology. Originally from the UK , he's been living in Taiwan and learning Mandarin Chinese for the last four years. He founded and runs Chinese Hacks, a blog dedicated to effectively learning Chinese.
2 Comments
-
Victor Mair has just written an interesting and very detailed investigation on the etymology of 工夫 and 功夫, at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3282
-
You weren’t lying when you said “very detailed”, cheers for posting this!
-
Leave a Comment
Archives
Official Partners
Friends of ChineseHacks
