In English, when we take a picture we try to make people smile. So we ask them to say "Cheese!" because it makes your face look like a smile.
In Spanish speaking countries I've heard people say "whisky!" And in China they say "茄子(qiezi)!" (which means "eggplant").
What about in other languages? I'm especially curious about French, Arabic, and Russian since I'm learning those. But I'd like to hear about others too.
Hello/你好,
I've been looking around the Chinese internet for good learning material, but it's hard to understand most programs. But I've found that the kid's show 喜羊羊与灰太狼 is really excellent, because the vocabulary is basic and they always put the hanzi at the bottom of the screen.
<a href="http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_%E5%96%9C%E7%BE%8A%E7%BE%8A">http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_%E5%96%9C%E7%BE%8A%E7%BE%8A</a>
Only one thing keeps it from being perfect: I can't find transcripts of the episodes, so it's hard to study new hanzi and vocabulary that I see in the show.
So, maybe some of our Chinese italki friends could make them? Just listen to the episode and type out the dialogue? No translation necessary--that's my job. I'd be happy to exchange some help with English proofreading/writing.
Maybe some other learners would be interested too? We could put up a whole list of transcripts as a common learning tool.
