Chinese for Martial Arts

[kreese]

I thought it might be a good idea to start a small list of the most commonly used Chinese words (+ their traditional characters and tones) used in martial arts. I am learning Chinese now, but the kind of vocab we use for martial arts is a little bit different or it is not the sort of essential vocab you learn in your first few Chinese courses. In any case, since we have quite a few people fluent in Chinese, I thought it might make a good resource to have a list of the sorts of words used to describe what we do. This could also help others who may be studying in a Chinese speaking country and don't yet have a solid grasp on Mandarin. Anatomy, action verbs, adjectives, etc.

E.g. D_Glenn just shared this in another post:

Shen1 fa3 = 身法

I collected these from Fong:

Xing2 Yi4 Quan2 形意拳
Ba1 Gua? Zhang? 八卦掌
Tai4 Ji2 Quan2 太极拳
Wu3 Xing2 五行

氣 qi4
神 shen2
意 yi4
力 li4

3 internal harmonies: 內三合 (nei? san3 he?)
心與意合、意與氣合、氣與力合
xin (heart/mind) and yi (intent) harmonize
intent and qi harmonize
qi and li (external force) harmonize

[ashe]

http://wusource.org/glossary

the theme is still in development.

feel free to join and add to the content.

[edededed]

Funny you mentioned this - was thinking of making a little e-book (or homepage) about something like this (but mostly people's names) - too many people pronounce everything wrong, when it isn't that hard.

[ashe]

hey ed, the wusource site has built in wiki capability. i'd really appreciate it if you wanted to join up and submit something. i know it's still a little rough around the edges but as i get a chance it'll be smoothed over.

our long term goal is to develop a site similar in concept to to t-nationbut geared toward CMA.

[mixjourneyman]

Ni mama shi wo nu pengyou. = how to nicely introduce yourself to a Chinese master

[Swede]

Kreese: for shen1 fa3 the fa is third tone. Also, I think you have the tone for tai and ji reversed: I think it is supposed to be tai4 ji2. Double check, I'm not a native Chinese speaker (but my wife (who is) hits me when I make mistakes )

[kreese]

Swede - you're right about tai4 ji2, I was not clear-headed when I wrote that.

ashe - the glossary looks pretty good. I just thought an ongoing sticky post would be good too, but I'm not sure how hard it would be to maintain.

mixjourneyman - maybe "no mama" can become the new "yo mama"

[SPJ]

Funny you mentioned this - was thinking of making a little e-book (or homepage) about something like this (but mostly people's names) - too many people pronounce everything wrong, when it isn't that hard.

my pin yin sucks. so I have to rely on the dictionary. over the years, I had to struggle with chinese software.

only late last year, I finally had one installed on my computer that is "easy" for me to use.

[nianfong]

some corrections and additions

Xing2 Yi4 Quan2 形意拳
Ba1 Gua4 Zhang3 八卦掌
Tai4 Ji2 Quan2 太极拳
Ba1 Ji2 Quan2 八極拳
Wu3 Xing2 五形

氣 qi4
神 shen2
意 yi4
力 li4
勁 jin4 or jing4

3 internal harmonies: 內三合 (nei4 san1 he2)
心與意合、意與氣合、氣與力合
xin (heart/mind) and yi (intent) harmonize
intent and qi harmonize
qi and li (external force) harmonize

[edededed]

Ashe - site looks good (nice design), but I do see a bunch of mistakes with the Chinese... maybe I'll go in and fix a bit sometime, at least based on what I know. Some comments:

- The underlining makes it a bit hard to see some of the letters (i.e. j or i? g or q?)
- Dim Mak is a Cantonese word, not sure how you want to treat Cantonese terms in the glossary
- Jin vs. Jing? (勁) This character is pronounced as either by Chinese folks, probably depending on where they were born, so which one to choose?

SPJ: Pinyin is much easier to use than Wade-Giles, if only because you rarely have to use weird marks (dots, etc.) on the letters that we can't really type on the Internet. Of course you do have to spend a day or so to learn to use it.

I think that the main problem with both Pinyin and Wade-Giles is that noone can really pronounce these words correctly without proper training - which is what my (proposed) mini-book should address.

I just want to help the people of the world who say:

"Yeah, I do Cow style bah-gwa-zang" (for example)

The Yale system of Romanization is much better - we should all switch to that! For example:

Pinyin: baguazhang
Wade-Giles: Pa-Kua-Chang
Yale: ba-gwa-jang

[nianfong]

various important parts of the body:

head = 頭 tou2
spine = 脊椎 ji2 zhui1
nape = 頸 jing3
chest = 胸 xiong1
back = 背 bei4
waist = 腰 yao1
groin/hip = 胯 kua4
thigh = 大腿 da4 tui3 (big leg)
knee = 膝蓋 xi1 gai4 or just 膝 xi1
lower leg = 小腿 xiao3 tui (small leg)
foot = 腳 jiao3 or 足 zu2
heel = 腳根 jiao3 gen1 (foot root)
ball of foot = 前腳掌 qian2 jiao3 zhang3 (forward foot palm)
shoulder = 肩 jian1
elbow = 手肘 shou3 zhou3 or just 肘 or just zhou3 --strange the dictionary says zhou3, but I've always heard it as zou2
hand = 手 shou3
fist = 拳 quan2
palm = 掌 zhang3
finger = 手指 shou3 zhi3

[kreese]

That's exactly what I be talkin' 'bout. Awesome. More...

[RickMatz]

Here you go:

http://www.thewushucentre.net/service_pages/downloads/

[kreese]

That is also exactly what I am talking about. Haha. Very cool. Xie xie, Mr. Matz.

[RickMatz]

Here is a FREE downloadable Chinese-English-Japanese dictionary. It has a very handy character look up page, if you can count strokes.

http://wakan.manga.cz/