Laowai Chinese has moved

Due to perpetual banning and unbanning by China, this blog has moved. Please update your bookmarks to point to the new site: www.laowaichinese.net

Not banned. hǎo xiāoxi

(I don't know why the "hǎo" in the title looks dumb in Internet Explorer...sorry)

Well, for whatever reason, the blog is back up in China. So please destroy any links to the pirated pkblogs.com version (as I have done).

Here's some appropriate vocabulary to celebrate with:

hǎo xiāoxi = good news

huài xiāoxi = bad news

I actually think of that "xiāoxi" should as "information" or "message." If you want to say "read the news" it's a different word:

kàn xīnwén = read the news [look new + smell/hear]

Weird that "to smell" can also mean "to hear." And, even though it's not SUPER important, the correct measure word for both kinds of news seems to be "tiáo" {measure word for long, narrow things} according to Chubby. Doesn't really make a lot of sense, but I always imagine ancient Chinese messengers reading decrees from the emperor on long scrolls (remember ancient Chinese was written top to bottom, right to left). But thankfully, they actually seem to prefer the old "ge" measure word in this case:

wǒ yǒu yí gè hǎo xiāoxi = I've got good news [I have one {m.} good message] **better**
wǒ yǒu yì tiáo hǎo xiāoxi = I've got good news [I have one {m.} good message]

Don't be alarmed that the tone for "yi" changed. That's what it does. There's a post in the works about the tone changes.

It's apparently also ok to say

wǒ yǒu hǎo xiāoxi = I've got good news [I have good message]

But omitting the "one" part of it seems to imply that you have a whole bunch of news to share. And, more importantly, the Chinese usually have that measure word in there when they say it and hey...they're the boss.

And now that final step of integrating the vocab into my daily life:

wǒ yǒu yí gè hǎo xiāoxi: wǒ de bókè huílái le = I've got good news: my blog came back