The Chinese Challenge
If you have missed the previous editions, here are the links to them. You are encouraged to read this series in order, as words from older challenges might appear in newer stories.
Challenge #1 人
Challenge #2 大
- Enjoy the story
- Spot the Chinese words in it
- What do you think they mean? Write it down in the following table.
| Chinese | Phonetic Guide | English |
|---|---|---|
| 犬 | quǎn | |
| 大犬 | dàquǎn |
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12/02/2018
Monday
Cloudy
Dear diary,
I am so busy I almost had no time to write!
Dad and I went to the dog pound this morning to adopt the 大 dog we saw and fell in love with the other day. This 大犬 used to be a police guard dog, but it was injured in a mission and was retired from the force. After months of rehabilitation, it regained health but was no longer allowed to follow the police on missions. It was therefore put up for adoption.
Did I tell you? My family already had another 犬, a small white one, furry and cute, but really was a pet and not a guard dog. When I saw a strange 人 in the park last week, our small 犬 was with me but it was as scared as I was, and ran away as fast as I did! My father was worried that I’d run into more bad 人 if I went out by myself again, so he decided to get a good fierce 犬 for us. He said that he was a 大人 who knew how to protect himself but as I was not yet a 大人 he felt that he shouldn’t let me go out alone unless I was accompanied by another 大人 or at least a fierce enough 犬. Come on dad! I am already 14 years old!
Either way, it was super of him to agree to adopt this new 大犬. I had spent the whole weekend tidying up our 大 backyard, clearing it of anything that could hurt a new 犬 unfamiliar with our house. I had also helped dad build a 大 kennel for it to sleep in on cold nights. Dad says it is a guard dog and ought to sleep in the backyard, not in our house with us. Besides, it is too 大 to walk about in the house without breaking something.
Mum would be coming home from her trip to Argentina soon. I look forward to showing her our new 大犬!
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Let's practice writing!
Chinese writing follows a certain order. You can see the stroke order labelled below. This means you write the horizontal stroke first, the one towards the left, the one towards the right, and finally finish off the character with the little dot.
| Name | Direction |
|---|---|
| The horizontal stroke is called "héng". | It is written from left to right. |
| The stroke that goes towards the left is called "piě". | It is written from top to bottom. |
| The stroke that goes towards the right is called "nà". | It is written from top to bottom. |
| The tiny stroke that looks like a dot is called "diǎn". | It is written from top to bottom. |
Chinese writing is done on squared paper. If you do not have squared paper, you can print this image out to practise on.
