Chineighs Word of the Day

by Super Trampoline

Fùkuǎn (付款): To Pay Bills

Twilight was tired of beating around the bush, and so tried a more direct approach: "So, uh, Fluttershy, I know I've known you a few months, but I guess I've never actually asked: how do you fùkuǎn?"

"Oh, uh, well, the answer is a bit embarrassing. I'd rather keep it to myself, if that's alright."

"While normally I'd respect that, you did ask me for help on your taxes. I need to know what you do for a living. If I don't know how you fùkuǎn, I can't really help you with deductibles." Twilight knew being a good friend sometimes meant helping your friends with things you'd rather not help them with. That didn't make this any less of a hassle though. Fluttershy was 24; this couldn't have been her first time filing taxes.

"Oh, well, I um... uh..."

"It can't be that embarrassing!" Twilight reassured.

"I, uh, melt down bits and sell the raw gold back to the government."

"Ah geez, Fluttershy,, that's like seven types of illegal!"

"Well, yes, but it certainly fùkuǎn. Plus whenever Angel Bunny is being uncooporative, I just threaten to melt him. Works like a charm!"

Twilight was dumbfounded. "Wha-wa-wa?!? This makes no sense! No sense at all!...

---

Twilight woke up with a start. "Aughhh!" she yelled, a telegraph fee stuck to her cheek. She looked around; it appeared she had fallen asleep at her desk again, up late working on fùkuǎn. Maybe it was time for bed if she was dreaming of weird finances.

Author's Note:

付款: to pay bills

Part of speech: verb-object
Example sentence: 我们吃完饭爸爸就付款。
Sentence meaning: Dad will pay the bill after we finish eating.
Pinyin word: fùkuǎn
Pinyin sentence: Wǒmén chīwán fàn bàba jiù fùkuǎn.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Well, this seems like it'll be interesting. Not sure how it'll help with grammar or verb conjugation, but it does seem like a fun writing exercise.

[Luna Aeterna Solutae]

7348019 Once you get it down, that's pretty simple. Chinese is actually pretty easy once you get past the way the phonemes are shaped entirely different than in English.

[Super Trampoline]

7348019 Chinese verbs don't conjugate actually, which makes things more than a bit easier. I probably should explain that somewhere.

[Super Trampoline]

7348246 this is a reference to one of the best Cadance stories in the fandom: The First Time You See Her, by Skywriter; it's part of a series though so start with the first book. They aren't that long and I extremely highly recommend them:

[Hillbe]

Gooni Ma!
Go Rude!

Bad words Shame on you Hillbe!

you don't realy want to know....

[Super Trampoline]

7349756 this is a reference to one of the best Cadance stories in the fandom: The First Time You See Her, by Skywriter; it's part of a series though so start with the first book. They aren't that long and I extremely highly recommend them.

[CoffeeMinion]

7348537 They don't? That would be awesome. A decent amount of the barrier to learning a language is keeping track of the subjunctive versus pluperfect versus whatever conjugations of all the verbs...

[Super Trampoline]

7351170 I'm an English tutor and even I can't explain tense, aspect, and mood. I know how to use grammar in my own writing or point out where it's wrong, but wish me luck trying to explain why.

[Kryssi]

7351170 No plurals for nouns, either:

(Traditional Chinese) 一個人 or (Simplified Chinese) 一个人 → (literally) one [measure word] person → (English) one person
(Traditional Chinese) 兩個人 or (Simplified Chinese) 两个人 → (literally) two [measure word] person → (English) two people

Although, as demonstrated above, there are measure words that Chinese learners have to worry about.