运动项目中文词汇速记

What does “羽毛球” literally mean in Chinese?

This sports-vocabulary clip is secretly one lesson: find the 球 (qiú, “ball”). Chinese names ball sports by plain description — 篮球 “basket-ball,” 足球 “foot-ball,” 网球 “net-ball” (tennis) — and the loveliest of them is 羽毛球, “feather-ball”: badminton, named for the feathered shuttlecock. Learn 球 once and half the sports section reads itself.

乒乓球 (pīngpāngqiú, table tennis) goes one better — 乒乓 is pure onomatopoeia, the ping-pong of the ball itself. Watch the verbs, though: hand sports are 打 (“hit”) — 打羽毛球 — but football is kicked, 踢足球. The clip’s non-ball entries share a character too: 滑冰 and 滑雪 — “slide-ice” (skating) and “slide-snow” (skiing).