English
French
Arabic
Bulgarian
Czech
Danish
German
Greek
Spanish
Finnish
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Hebrew
Japanese
Korean
Dutch
Polish
Portuguese, International
Romanian
Russian
Slovak
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
To play is 玩 . The character combines jade, 王 (a reduced form of 玉), for the meaning, and 元 for the sound; the Shuowen defines it as 弄 , “to handle”. So people first “played” with fine objects they held in their hands. A toy is a 玩具 , “a utensil for playing”, and a game a 游戏 . After Winter sports, gymnastics and competition, this page opens the series on leisure.
Several toys known all over the world come from China. The tangram is a 七巧板 , “the seven ingenious boards”: it appeared in China at the turn of the 19th century and became all the rage in Europe around 1818. The roly-poly toy is a 不倒翁 , “the old man who does not fall”, and the expression also refers to the politician who survives every change. To make toys out of paper, see Toy origami.
Playground games are much the same from one country to another, but their names are not. Our “red light, green light” is a 一二三木头人, “one, two, three, wooden man”: everyone has to freeze like a wooden statue. Hopscotch is 跳房子 , “jumping the houses”. And in 老鹰捉小鸡, “the eagle catches the chicks”, the hen shields a line of children holding on to one another behind her.
Go is a 围棋 , literally “the chess of encirclement”: 围 “to surround” + 棋 “game with pieces” ⟶ go. The Shiben attributes its invention to Emperor Yao, and the Bowuzhi adds that he wanted to teach his son Danzhu; it is a legend, of course. The game pits the black stones, 黑子 , which move first (sentence 11), against the white ones. In 2017, the Chinese champion Ke Jie lost all three of his games against AlphaGo, which the Chinese nickname 阿尔法狗 , “the Alpha dog”, a pun on Go (sentence 21).
Chinese chess, 象棋 , has its own pieces. Watch out: the piece 车, the chariot, is read and not . Across the middle of the board flows the 楚河汉界 , “the river of Chu, the border of Han”, a memory of the war between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. The soldier, 卒 , never moves back; once it has crossed the river, it may also move sideways. Hence the 过河卒子 , the one whose only way out is forward. Hu Shi wrote it under his portrait in 1938, when he became ambassador to the United States (sentence 24).
Mahjong, 麻将 , was born in the 19th century, but nobody agrees on exactly where. It is jokingly called the 国粹 , “the national quintessence”. Watch out again: when you win the hand, 和 is read , hence 和牌 ; many people actually write it 胡. People also say 搓麻将 , “to rub the mahjong”, because of the noise of the tiles being shuffled by the handful on the table. And when a player is missing, you are 三缺一 (sentence 13).
Playing cards have their own imagery. Hearts is a 红桃 , “a red peach”, as the shape of the heart recalls that of the peach. One of the most played card games today, 斗地主 , “fighting the landlord”, is said to come from Hubei. For the die, I give 骰子 , the reading of the characters; but what you mostly hear is , which the dictionary writes 色子. The Chinese themselves hesitate.
Confucius blames idleness more than games (sentence 25, see Chapter 17 of the Analects of Confucius): better to play, he says, than to sit doing nothing. Couvreur translates 博弈 as “tablets and chess”. In fact, 弈 then meant go (the Shuowen glosses it as 围棋), and 博 a game of dice and pieces that has since disappeared. The Zuozhuan already speaks of the player who 举棋不定 , “lifts his piece without knowing where to put it”. For games to play in class, see Classroom games for learning Chinese.
Click on any character on the page: its stroke order appears stroke by stroke, with the arrow showing the direction of the line.
How to use this page: every word carries its level. ① the essentials, ② the common, ③ the precise. Start with the ①: they are already enough to invite someone to play cards, go or mahjong. The ▶ button gives the pronunciation, and a click on a character opens its stroke order.
Toys
toy
toy shop
doll; baby
balloon, “air ball”
building blocks, “piled-up wood”
kite
to fly a kite
soft toy, cuddly toy
doll (Western-style), “foreign doll”
spinning top
Rubik’s Cube, “magic square”
Lego
slide
seesaw
tangram, “the seven ingenious boards”
roly-poly toy, “the old man who does not fall”
pellet drum (Chinese rattle)
bamboo-copter, “bamboo dragonfly”
Chinese diabolo, “hollow bamboo”
Children’s games
game
to play hide-and-seek
to skip (rope); skipping rope
rock, paper, scissors, “stone, scissors, cloth”
to blow soap bubbles
amusement park
to play hopscotch, “jumping the houses”
to play elastics (Chinese jump rope)
“the eagle catches the chicks” (chasing game)
drop the handkerchief (game)
red light, green light, “one, two, three, wooden man”
marble (glass)
merry-go-round
cat’s cradle (string figures between the fingers)
jacks, knucklebones, “grabbing pebbles”
to bowl a hoop
cricket fighting
Go
to play chess (or go)
a game of chess (or go)
chess, go; piece
go, “the chess of encirclement”
chessboard, game board
piece, stone, counter
Black, black stone
White, white stone
chess player, go player
gomoku, “five-stone chess”
to capture a piece, “to eat a stone”
to play a game (of chess, of go)
rank (in dan)
ninth dan
to give a handicap, “to concede stones”
to take back a move, “to regret one’s piece”
Chinese chess and other games with pieces
xiangqi, Chinese chess
chess (Western), “international chess”
to play Chinese chess
Chinese chess (full name), “China’s xiangqi”
check!; to put in check
the river dividing the board, “river of Chu, border of Han”
Chinese checkers, “jumping chess”
ludo (aeroplane version)
to checkmate
chariot (Chinese chess piece, the equivalent of the rook)
cannon (Chinese chess piece)
soldier (Chinese chess piece)
army chess (military game with pieces)
Mahjong
mahjong
to play mahjong
mahjong tile
to go mahjong, to win the hand
to win on one’s own draw, “to touch it oneself”
dealer, banker
“three, one missing” (a fourth player is needed)
mahjong parlour
to play mahjong, “to rub the mahjong”
to be waiting for the last tile, “to listen for the tile”
to discard the tile that lets an opponent win, “to light the cannon”
the national quintessence (mahjong, jokingly)
Playing cards
playing cards; poker
to play cards
card; tile
to deal the cards
hearts, “the red peach”
spades, “the black peach”
diamonds, “the square block”
clubs, “the grass flower”
big joker, “the great king”
small joker, “the little king”
“fighting the landlord” (card game)
to play a card, “to bring out a card”
straight flush, “same-suit sequence”
straight (cards)
pair
to cheat at cards
bridge, “the cards of the bridge”
Board games and riddles
die, dice
board game, “table game”
riddle
to guess riddles
rule
it is the turn of
to throw the dice
Monopoly, “the great rich man”
Werewolf (bluffing and deduction game), “the werewolf kills”
murder mystery game, “killing according to the script”
to be a bad sport, to break the rules
to admit defeat, to give up
trick question, “sharp turn of the brain”
Huarong Dao (sliding-block puzzle), “the Huarong road”
sudoku
chain of 成语, “joining the dragon”
Games in set expressions
to hesitate, “to hold the piece up without putting it down”
to meet one’s match
“the player goes astray, the onlooker sees clearly”
“he who watches the game without a word is a true gentleman”
to play so much that one loses all ambition
“a piece once played, no regrets” (one stands by one’s choices)
“one careless move, and the whole game is lost”
scattered everywhere, “spread like the stars and the pieces on a board”
Games in everyday words
to joke
trump card, master card
to replay a game to analyse it; to review
hole card; one’s true hand
“to play a big game” (to have a secret plan, ironic)
“the soldier who has crossed the river” (there is no going back)
not to play by the rules, to be unpredictable
Example sentences
Can you play Chinese chess?
The children are flying kites in the park.
Let’s play hide-and-seek!
For my birthday, my grandmother gave me a doll.
Every afternoon, Grandpa plays chess in the park.
It’s your turn.
Rock, paper, scissors: the loser goes and buys the drinks.
At New Year, the whole family plays mahjong.
The rules of this game are very simple.
He solves a Rubik’s Cube in under a minute.
In go, Black plays first.
Don’t be a bad sport, you’ve already lost!
There are three of us, we need a fourth: are you coming?
As children, we often played hopscotch in the courtyard.
At the Spring Festival, lots of people play “fighting the landlord”.
This game has been going on for three hours and still isn’t over.
“Check!” “Not so fast, I can still move.”
This weekend, we’re going to play board games at some friends’ place.
He was hesitating and, for a long while, did not put his piece down.
“A true gentleman watches the game without saying a word”: so keep quiet.
In 2017, Ke Jie lost three games to nil against AlphaGo.
He went mahjong on his own draw and jumped for joy.
The player goes astray, the onlooker sees clearly: so listen to your friends’ advice.
Now that I am a soldier who has crossed the river, I can only charge straight ahead. (Hu Shi)
When a man does nothing but eat and drink all day long, without applying his mind to any occupation, how hard it is for him to become virtuous! Are there not tablets and chess? It would be better to give oneself to these games than to remain doing nothing. (Confucius, Analects, XVII.21)
