24 Days of Hanzi

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Preface Link to heading

24 Days of Hanzi for Christmas 2020, originally published in Twitter.

Day 1 Link to heading

#24DaysOfHanzi 咖

Have you noticed that 咖 is pronounced kā in 咖啡(kāfēi, coffee), and gā in 咖喱(gāli, curry)?

I didn’t notice until yesterday, though I already knew. Human brains are funny devices.

The word 咖喱 doesn’t sound much like the English “curry”, to the point that for long I’ve had a misconception that garlic means 咖喱. Now that I know 咖喱 is the phonetic translation of the Tamil word “kari”, I feel much better. Though I still don’t know why it has to be “gā”.

Chinese on Keyboard And Me

24 Days of Hanzi

Preface Link to heading

Day 1 Link to heading