Stick’s mom is famous for forcing me to watch Nascar and driving my hyperactive self to the MTELs. The other day, she e-mailed me to tell me she’d learned some Mandarin words, and she gave the examples wo xiang-nian ni (I miss you), xiang jiao (banana) and shu cai (vegetable). This is a perfect example of why Mandarin drives me insane.
Xiang jiao (??) means “banana”, but xiang jiao (??) means “I want a foot” and xiang jiao(??) means “proudly galloping four-legged dragon.”
I thought “I miss you” was Wo xiang ni. What’s the “nian” for?