French vs. Chinese

One of the massive differences between French and Chinese is easily outlined in how you ask for food at a restaurant.

French: Je voudrais [insert food here], s'il vous plait.
Chinese: Wǒ yào [insert food here].

In the French version, "voudrais," a more polite form of the verb "vouloir" (to want) is used. After the name of the food, you say "s'il vous plait," which means "please," and in fact it's an even more polite form of "please" ("s'il te plait" is more informal).

In the Chinese version, you literally only have to say "I want."

Here are the two statements, this time translated into English (I'm not really sure what to call them, because you're asking but you're sort of asking indirectly by saying what you would like rather than asking if you can have that particular food).

French: I would like [insert food here], please.
Chinese: I want [insert food here].

Chinese is so blunt sometimes. In the Du Du Xiong books, one of the pigs is called Xiǎozhū féiféi which literally means "little pig fat fat."

And that is why I like learning Chinese.

Chinese has some cool words.

Table tennis: PING PANG QIU.

Point made.

Lost in translation

So I went onto Google Translate and typed in random stuff (the translation languages were set to Chinese to English) just to listen to the English voice- though just now I've worked out that the Chinese voice is funnier when you type in something in English.

I don't know why, but that just made me laugh. What do "european titles" have to do with aeroplane toilets, anyway? I thought I was the master of linking random things with aeroplane toilets!

What do they teach the children in China?

I was looking at a Chinese textbook I own (due to the lack of English, I assume that it's for Chinese-speaking children to learn Chinese) and the text was:

雪
冬天到了，下起了大雪，满地白白的。
小猫打开门，一看就叫了起来：“下糖了！下糖了！”
小狗听见了，马上打开门，说：“不对，是下盐了！” 他们争了起来，都说自己是对的。
这时，小兔走过来说：“你们别争了，是糖还是盐，大家尝一尝就知道了。”　小猫和小狗尝了一点儿雪，说：“它不甜，它不咸，吃在嘴里凉凉的。”　小兔告诉他们：“这不是糖，也不是盐，它叫　‘雪’。”

There might be some wrong words in there because typing up Chinese gets pretty messy, especially since the words for "he," "she" and "it" all have the same pronunciation.

Very rough translation:

Snow
Winter has come and it is snowing, making the ground white.
Little Cat opened the door, and as soon as it saw, it called out, "Falling sugar! Falling sugar!"
Little Dog listened and immediately opened the door, saying, "Wrong, it's salt!" They argued, both saying that they were right.
Meanwhile, Little Rabbit walked over, saying, "Stop arguing over whether it is sugar or salt, if everyone tasted it they would know." Little Cat and Little Dog tasted a little snow, saying, "It's not sweet, nor is it salty, but eating it makes my mouth cold." Little Rabbit told them, "It's not sugar, nor is it salt- it's called 'snow.'"

Of course, it is perfectly sensible to eat some random substance. I have nothing against Little Rabbit suggesting it since Little Rabbit obviously knew what it was, but as for the other characters...?