English Words That Are Chinese Originals.

Simon   Mon Sep 22, 2008 12:12 am GMT
Which ones are there?
Ted   Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:53 am GMT
Yum Cha
beneficii   Tue Sep 23, 2008 1:42 am GMT
"chow" as in "chow down."
Super Korean   Tue Sep 23, 2008 11:59 am GMT
Off the top of my head,
Gung Ho
Dim sum
Kung fu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Chinese_origin
Guest   Tue Sep 23, 2008 7:34 pm GMT
Congee
Pekoe
China (porcelain)
Xie   Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:46 am GMT
I'm afraid that the average Chinese won't even know that many "English" words...

I have to ask, then, what Chop Suey is. It's like asking why "western cakes and bread" taste so awfully sweet (as my teacher said) and are so soft to touch (as opposed to the French "pains")...which is actually the creation of Chinese bakers.

The average streets where you can find such "western cake" shops might have created a pseudo-Japanese image for Hong Kong - recently, while browsing, I can see a clear cultural stereotype that "a lot of Americans think Hong Kong is somewhere near Tokyo/in Japan, and so are the young people".

And when I go to the train station of Guangzhou, the "western cakes and bread" have quite another taste - less sweet, more egg. It seems things are really quite different in the same province in just 200km or so.
sisi   Sat Sep 27, 2008 1:40 pm GMT
I'm not familiar with which English words have chinese origins, but I do know some Chinese words have English origins, like "sofa""coffee". However, I believe as China is playing a more and more important role in the world, many English words will be effected by Chinese. So it a good choice to learn Chinese, no matter you choose to go to China to learn or just take on-line courses, like http://www.hellomandarin.com/ilovechinese .